The most convenient trees to cut down were those near waterways for easy transportation.[2] As the supply dwindled and loggers had to go further from water, they used teams of oxen or horses for hauling.[2] These were superseded by steam-powered donkeys and locomotives.[2] The final development was the logging truck.

A truck was used for logging in Covington, Washington, in 1913.[3] The coming of World War I and the resulting demand for the Pacific Northwest's Sitka spruce for airplanes "established log trucking in Washington".[3] The United States Army assigned thousands of men to the Spruce Production Division to build roads into western Washington to harvest the dispersed stands of the best trees.[3] After the war ended, a plenitude of surplus military trucks made their adoption attractive to logging companies, particularly smaller outfits that could not afford expensive locomotives.

The primitive trucks were improved in the 1920s and 1930s, with more powerful engines and better braking systems.[4] The old "narrow, solid rubber—sometimes steel—treadless tires" were replaced by wider pneumatic ones with treads.[4] Plank roads gave way to graded dirt ones.[4] By the mid-1930s, trucks were hauling as much timber out of the Pacific Northwest as the railroads.