A Steam-Powered Sawmill on Matapedia Lake, ca. 1880.
Before the development of electric power and the gas turbine in the early twentieth century, only large factories were able to use the steam engine because of its heaviness and high cost. Consequently, small and medium-sized businesses, especially those located outside large cities, were much slower to mechanize. Small sawmills, for example, simply used a hydraulic turbine installed close to a waterfall. This illustration, however, shows an exception to the rule, the Grant sawmill on Matapedia Lake in the Lower St. Lawrence. Notice the ingenuity of the owner and his employees; they have built a sawmill using an old steam locomotive as the motor by extending its smokestack.
