Learning from the Tree Crusher

by Douglas Robb, University of British Columbia

While researching the history of the W A C Bennett Hydroelectric Dam at the Royal British Columbia Archives, I came across a passing reference to a machine called the Mackenzie Tree Crusher. This ominously-named device— the largest of its kind — was designed for a singular purpose: to crush trees. Conceived and manufactured by the LeTourneau Technologies Corporation in Longview, Texas, it consisted of a central chassis connected to two spiked drum rollers that functioned as wheels. Above the front roller extended a rigid beam designed to topple ‘all sizes of vegetation, both large and small’. The spiked rollers would then ‘fell, break up, and partially masticate all vegetation’ that stood in the Tree Crusher’s path, leaving behind it a wake of splintered debris and sawdust . . .

Read the rest of Douglas Robb's essay on the tree crusher's global reach in On Site review 39: tools