Pioneer Axe

Peter Vogt made this terrific 10 minute film in 1965 of the Emerson Stevens axe shop in Oakland Maine. Makers of the Pioneer brand of axes, they were the last remaining shop in a town that had once housed a dozen axe making shops. They closed a few months after this film was made. Amazing to see the process involved in making axes. It’s easy to imagine that the way they did things in 1965 was the way they did things in 1865.