Local wood cutter, world record holder, retiring

He’s raised a cougar named Tiffany, set a world record for wood splitting and run two successful businesses, and now Ed Steele is ready to retire.

But not before he sells Ed’s Firewood, his wood cutting business, to ensure his 100 clients are well taken care of.

“My customers mean a great deal to me,” said Steele.

Steele, who will turn 66 years old in September, saws and splits about 150 cord of wood a year, working six hours a day, five days a week.

“It’s about two hours per cord,” said Steele, who also delivers the wood to all his customers. “It was 35 minutes when I started on the record.”

Steele set that Guinness Book of World Records’ record for wood splitting in Eugene, Ore., on July 2, 1976.

He remembers the date because it was his father’s birthday in the country’s bicentennial year.

And he remembers the town because it’s hard to forget.

“It was a crazy time in Eugene. Ken Kesey lived there then,” said Steele, referring to the Beat Generation writer. “It was one heck of a week.”

He cut 15 cord in 10 hours using a 125 cubic centimeter McCulloch chain saw.

“They make 90cc Honda motorcycles,” said Steele.

But he didn’t cut from full logs, a requirement unbeknownst to him, so he holds the unofficial record for cutting and the official record for splitting.

Since then, Steele’s done a lot, including driving semi trucks, which is how, in 1991, he lost his leg when his truck was hit by a car and rolled over.

Five years later, he moved to Nevada.

“I was looking for a dryer climate,” said Steele, and when he visited, “there was no wind for two weeks. Mysteriously.”

He re-launched Ed’s Firewoods, which he originally started in 1972, nine years ago, and operates it on leased land on Drako Way off Highway 50.

There he cuts all kinds of wood, from almond to Red fir to cottonwood.

Almond, which he gets from farmers in California, is the best, he says, because it burns at 34 BTUs, and is priced at $400 a cord.

Cottonwood, which he gets for free and is routinely cut down, burns at 16 BTUs and is sold for $160 a cord.

He shares the space with a tiny friend, a small bird who flies from one stack of wood to another all day in search of bugs to eat.

Steele named him Oliver, after his landlord who passed away two years ago.

“He hears the splitter and comes over. Sometimes he brings a friend,” said Steele. “He started coming about a year ago. I thought he might be Mr. Oliver coming to say hi.”

Steele’s final project is a huge cottonwood tree cut down from the Stewart Indian School.

He said it will take a week, cutting it up like a pie, and he may film it and post it on youtube.

He plans to continue to operate his other business, E.C. Steele Enterprises, a Dumpster business which hauls away debris and recycles it until next April.

Then Steele said he plans to head east, with his RV, a Dumpster or two and his boat, to see the rest of the country, including a stop in Georgia to see his son and trips to Maine and Nova Scotia.

And Tiffany? She was a clawless cougar he got as a kitten while in college studying photography. She grew to 85 pounds and he had her for 15 years.

“That’s why they compared me to Paul Bunyan,” he said.