The Hume-Bennett Lumber Company was a logging operation in the Sequoia National Forest in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

[1] In 1878, the United States Congress passed the Timber and Stone Act to encourage private ownership of timberland and facilitate logging.

This facilitated the transfer of large tracts of land from the government to lumber companies, who often recruited and paid individuals to file claims on their behalf.

Stagecoaches transported people between the mountains and the United States General Land Office to hurry the claim process.

[7][8]: 12  A stone and concrete dam at Mill Flat Creek created Sequoia Lake, which served as an artificial reservoir to provide water for the flume.

It took 15 hours for a train to reach the railhead at Sanger, a speed of commercial lumber transport that was unmatched at that time.

[13] In 1883, the Kings River Lumber Company provided a giant sequoia for display at the World's Colombian Exposition in Chicago.

To try to recover their investment, the company decided to place a sawmill in the heart of the redwood forest and log the large trees.

[11]: 9  With the permission of the creditors, the company kept a crew of 100 men working on the project all winter and made improvements to the hoist and incline railway.

[21][8]: 50  By the early spring of 1897, the company had moved the equipment from Millwood and Abbot Mills into the new Converse Basin sawmill.

The new mill began operating on June 30, 1897, with a crew of 400 men and a two-band saw powered by a 1,000 horsepower steam engine.

After a week or so of cutting, the tree was forced to fall by pounding in additional wedges until the trunk could no longer stand upright.

To reduce this risk, loggers often created a "felling bed" by clearing and leveling an area and cushioning it with branches and leaves to absorb some of the shock of the falling tree.

[22] The chutes were made of logs placed parallel to each other and supported by trestles or crib work on steep slopes.

[23]: 103  This change had long-term ecological consequences, as the wood-burning donkey engines needed fuel and consumed logging waste, undergrowth, and immature trees that would otherwise remain, compounding the destructive effect of clear-cutting on forest regeneration.

[26] The company also extended the Sequoia Railroad to Hume Lake, adding two Shay locomotives and building a trestle over the water to a new log dump.

[25] The Hume-Bennett Lumber Company hired John Samuel Eastwood to construct a dam that would create Hume Lake.

Chinese American workers were hired to build the dam, which needed 2,207 cubic yards of concrete and eight miles of steel cable.

[16] During an economic recession in 1913-1914, the Hume-Bennett Lumber Company returned to logging more profitable giant sequoia trees.

[33] In 1917, the Sierra region was impacted by World War I, which led to a 40% reduction in the workforce and difficulties obtaining supplies and equipment.

[8]: 73  Injury and death were common occurrences in all aspects of the logging operation due to the dangers of steel cables, mill machinery, and flume trestles.

Accounts of injuries were common in newspapers and courtroom filings, including: In 1926 a forest fire destroyed 7 miles of the log flume[17] and in 1927 George Hume sold some of the company's assets.

[17] On April 8, 1935, he sold the remainder the company, including the dam and 20,000 acres of land, to the U.S. National Forest Service.

The sale included the Hume Lake Hotel, store, service station, post office, 22 cottages, 22 boats, a saloon and a brothel.