Industrial Heritage · Billiton · 1954
The Timber Sawmill at Djangkang
An archival photographic journey from forest logging to sawn timber, as documented in Erts – Maandblad der Billitonbedrijven.
Beyond the tin mines
Belitung’s industrial past also included timber processing. A five-page photographic feature titled “De houtzagerij te Djangkang (Billiton)” appeared in Erts in 1954 (pp. 269–273). Its fifteen numbered photographs document a sequence of operations, from felling trees to transporting sawn wood.
These images are valuable as a visual record of equipment, work sites and workers. The supplied pages do not establish the sawmill’s founding date, ownership or production capacity.
Stage 01
Felling and hauling timber
Workers felled trees in the forest. The photo captions then show trunks being dragged toward a log deck (log-deck), including by tracked machinery.
Stage 02
At the log deck
At the log deck, timber was unloaded and prepared. Other photographs in the original sequence show debarking and cutting trunks into sections.
Stage 03
Tramway and water storage
The photographs record a tram carrying logs to a storage reservoir, followed by the removal of trunks from the water. This sequence documents the movement of timber between forest and processing facilities.
Stage 04
Sawing and dispatch
The final images show timber being sawn inside the mill and the finished sawn wood being moved away on a small rail trolley.
