permanent livelihood in the Valley came more than 60 years after Fansler when Solomon W. Cosner began living at Fansler's old homestead in 1864.:378-379 The country was described at that time as one of "...original forests [which...] is swampy, but, as soon as the timber is removed, the water dries up ... Water stands in horse tracks in the woods." Cosner, a Civil War veteran known as the "Pioneer of Canaan", was a noted bear hunter. He and his sons were said to have killed more than 500 bears in Canaan Valley (as well as countless deer, two panthers and a wolf). Other families arrived to settle in the Valley in the 1870s. In 1883, a Virginia adventurer, former Texas cowboy and land speculator named Charles R. Ruffin bought of the Valley and organized the "Canaan Valley Blue Grass & Improvement Company", but his scheme to create a vast and profitable cattle ranch came to nothing.:488-489,:595 Logging and wildfires Logging of the surrounding mountains was extensive in the 1880s and '90s, but impenetrable understories of rhododendron made passage through the Valley floor almost impossible until the advent of a logging railroad in 1915. The productivity of the timber stands extracted from the Valley floor between 1888 and 1922 (when the last virgin timber was removed) was twice that of similar stands within the state. Maurice Brooks described the ensuing environmental damage in his classic book on Appalachian natural history: Canaan Valley had a tragic history, and its comeback has been a slow one. A hundred years ago valley and surrounding ridges were covered by red spruce forest of a density that is hard to imagine today. Under such a forest the sun never reached to ground level, humus accumulated through the ages, and fire was not a threat. The lumbermen came, ultimately, and if total and permanent destruction of the entire area had been an aim it could scarcely have been more fully realized. An official of the company boasted that in they had not left one stick of timber that would make a two-by-four. Log yields were fantastic; some land on the valley floor scaled to of lumber ... With all cover removed, organic material at ground level began to dry out; soon it was high-grade fuel, and the inevitable fires got started. There followed such a ground fire as this state has never seen before or since. For