Logan Christmas Tree Farm A Legacy
Candy Puterbaugh
50plus Magazine
Fog couldn’t mute the beauty of the drive to the Logan Tree Farm on Dixie Mountain. Winding past alpacas, an old cemetery and a one-lane bridge, the country road rich with russets, golds and deep reds led to a “Pavement Ends” sign. The gravel road narrowed, climbed, then dipped to reveal thousands of Christmas trees gracing a hillside in peaceful greeting. The quiet was cut by a motorcycle emerging from the mist.
Owner Dan Logan, 67, raced motorcycles long ago as a sideline to the business he’s been part of since age six. Now he rides daily, checking on the 20,000 trees on 40 acres he’s planted and cared for like children.
Surrounded by trees and family, Dan grew up in the house next door where his son and daughter now live. At the time, Christmas trees farms were new.
“Since age six, I loved helping with the trees and thought selling Christmas trees was a blast!” he says in his cozy meeting room attached to a livestock barn. “When you live on a farm, every family member needs to work to make it successful. Because I was small, I did basal pruning — cutting lower branches. I used pruners because my parents wouldn’t let me have a shearing knife with a razor-sharp 16” blade!”
The family has been selling trees at the Albertsons on SW Beaverton-Hillsdale Hwy since 1963. Dan took over the business in the ‘70s while in college. Noble firs and the Nordmanns are perennial bestsellers.
The lot opens the day after Thanksgiving. From then until season’s end, Dan drives 45 minutes daily from his North Plains farm in a one-ton flatbed dump truck with a 20-foot trailer hauling trees, wreaths, greenery and “what we call our small tree house that’s comfy and warm and looks nice.”
Tree farming runs deep in the family. Dan’s wife Lillian grew up on her father’s Dinihanian Holly Farm and her mother hailed from Teufel Holly Farms. Dan’s brother Dave was a big part of the business until he passed away in 2019. Now preparing the third generation to run the business, they know what is required. “Well-trained people!” daughter Christiana chimes in. She and her brother Alexander, both OSU alumni, began working on the farm as kids and have done all the planting and pruning the last couple of years.
“It’s been fun hanging out with my dad!” Christiana says, petting her puppy Wyatt, a recent arrival from Lillian’s Labrador breeding and training business.
“When I attended OSU,” Dan says, “many forestry department professors knew me because they were also Christmas tree growers. I chose forestry management because it was more rigorous and taught me science and more than the basics.” Dan used his knowledge to speak at professional organizations’ gatherings and serve on their boards.
The Logans live on about 500 acres of family-owned land, originally settled by Dan’s great-great-grandparents in 1883. They’ll soon add another 80 acres.
As farming changed, the Logans adapted and began raising Christmas trees. “Before the ‘50s, people cut wild trees,” Dan says. “Farmers started transplanting for Christmas trees, and in the ‘60s tried to make them look better. The new business took off.
“We’re unusual because for the last 20 years, when trees are cut, we’ve planted cover crops of grass or anything that produces organic matter. We’ve seen gradual improvement. It’s better to clear-cut, rework the ground, and replant. Most people grow trees over and over.
“What many people don’t know is that it takes a lot of planning and patience to grow Christmas trees. But most of them haven’t been doing this for 60 years! I’ve loved selling Christmas trees since I was six!”