Use
Originally lumber was only floated downstream using seasonal high water, typically in spring following snowmelt. Loggers found that by constructing a dam to impound water they could control the level of water and float more logs, which improved conditions for log drivers. In addition to the annual early spring log drive in March, splash dams frequently allowed smaller drives anytime there was sufficient water: in Pennsylvania rains could lead to drives in May or June, and small drives in September or October were also possible.
To give some idea of the scale of the log drives, Pennsylvania's Pine Creek, the largest tributary of the West Branch Susquehanna River, had produced rafts of pine spars for decades, ending in 1865. The earliest spring log drives there floated up to 20,000,000 board feet (47,000 m³) of logs in the creek at one time. In 1908, a single splash dam in northcentral Pennsylvania floated 8,000,000 board feet (18,900 m³) in one log drive.
Log drives lasted four to six days in northern Pennsylvania. A series of arks, boats specially built for the drive, floated down the creek behind the logs. Typically one boat was the kitchen and dining area, one served as sleeping quarters for the men, and one provided shelter for the horses. The men and horses worked in the creek all day getting logs stranded on the banks back in the water. Log jams were a problem as well and required careful removal of one or more key logs to break the jam and allow the logs to again flow freely. Breaking a logjam might involve one or more men working with hand tools, or it might involve explosives.
By impounding water and allowing it to be released on the log drive's schedule, these dams allowed many more logs to be brought to market than the natural flow of the creek allowed. Water releases from multiple splash dams on tributaries were also often combined to maximize the number of logs floated throughout a given watershed. On the Red River in eastern Kentucky, a series of carefully timed releases of water from splash dams allowed log drives to travel 20 miles (32 km) downstream. These drives had between 35,000 and 50,000 logs in them and one produced a log jam 1 mile (1.6 km) long.
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