Yes. It was when the mills and big land owners had their own logging crews. PLS in Randle/Packwood had logging crews which were union as did Champion in the same area. It began to end in that area in the late 1980s when Champion sold their mill and lands. PLS did later. The mills laid everybody off for the amount of time it took to end the unions, and then reopened with less benefits available and logging was contracted out. I think the fallers were always contracted out--it was the crews and truckers who were union.
About that time, the owl stuff hit the fan and the bad times began. Champion's local crew had a yarder break through a bridge and it ended up in the Cowlitz River and right after that they canned their logging crews and sold out. I think the yarder/bridge affair might have been more of a coincidence than a cause.
I'm thinking Weyco used to be the same. Rumor had it (in the 1980s) that they were going to log off all their land around Morton and that would be it until the next crop of trees matured. We used to have to go to work in that area and it could get exciting even with a CB in the pickup. 100 loads a day were coming out on one road.
There were always the gypo loggers though. They would hope for that One Sale that would make them rich. That did happen once in a while.
Oh, and some of the mills were sold to non-timber people. The Morton Champion mill was sold to a group of lawyers who were investing. They ran it for a brief time then it was closed and torn down. The same was true for other mills--they were torn down and machinery sold off. There was no local connection for the new investor owners. It was about the time that greed became very popular.