Along the corridor of the Kilkenny logging railroad the Androscoggin River flows eastward.  The Androscoggin River is one of the largest rivers in New England spanning over 170 miles across New Hampshire and Maine.   By the mid-1800’s the Androscoggin was home of some of the world’s largest paper mills. 

Sections of the Androscoggin River are broad and calm stretches of water.  During the annual log drive, this stretch of water provided the flow capacity to carry over two hundred thousand white pine logs to meet an appetite of extensive lumber and paper mills.  These logs were harvested in the winter and were floated down river in early spring with the snowmelt.   Hundreds of men (called rivermen) risked life and limb to drive the logs to the mills.   To contain the logs Boom Piers were made that help divide the floating load to its respective mill.   Boom Piers were “small man-made "islands" in the river were used to secure a chain of boom logs which divided the Androscoggin River during the colorful and dramatic annual log drives, when the Brown Paper Co. and the International Paper Co. shared the river to float their logs from the forests far upriver to the mills at Berlin.”   Every log was stamped to identify the mill and was later sorted at a "sorting gap" further upriver.