大雪山製材廠

Daxueshan Lumber Mill

April 7th, 2024

Daxueshan Lumber Company (大雪山林業公司) was established around 1959 with US aid in Dongshi, Taichung, with the sawmill entering into operation in 1964. It was the first major lumber mill established in post-war Taiwan and the company prioritized forest road-building and truck-based material transport, eschewing the lumber railways more common in the Japanese colonial era. Although it was the largest lumber mill in East Asia in the 1960s it struggled to become profitable and closed around 1973, with the constituent parts reorganized under the auspices of the state-run Forestry Bureau.

Production ceased at some point and the 921 Earthquake of 1999 and a wildfire in 2006 left much of the site in ruins. Parts of the site have been incorporated into a forestry park and protected under heritage law as a cultural landscape. Nowadays the original lumber storage pond (貯木池), a repair shop, and various facilities on the south side of the pond (wood chip storage, boiler room, log loader, etc.) can be freely visited as part of Dongshi Forestry Cultural Park (東勢林業文化園區).