The mangled grove of snapped and splintered cottonwood trees along the Minnesota River just south of St. Peter will be a lasting reminder of the Aug. 24 tornado.

Months later, crews from Hiniker Saw Mill are still cutting logs from the mature trees downed or severely damaged in the storm. Owner Steve Hiniker said things looked much worse when he first walked through the area.

“It was a mess,” Hiniker recalled.

Those who drove Highway 169 in the days following the storm remember the scene: towering trees uprooted by the wind and thick trunks snapped in two. The comparison to so many matchsticks was unavoidable.

But the future of that lumber isn’t matchsticks; it’s likely to become pallets and shipping containers.

“It’s a tough, stringy lumber, and it’s strong,” Hiniker said.

Hiniker Saw Mill was contracted by the Minnesota Department of Transportation to clear the grove. Most of the land is MnDOT-owned highway right-of-way.

Woody Woodruff, a local MnDOT highway maintenance supervisor, said other contractors would have charged by the hour to complete the job. Hiniker Saw Mill is working for free, and in exchange will keep all of the lumber.

Just how much lumber could be harvested from the grove was hard for Hiniker to estimate.

“It doesn’t take long to get to 100,000 board feet,” he said.

Each board foot is equivalent to 1 square foot of lumber 1-inch thick.

Hiniker said each 1,000 board feet of the cottonwood lumber would sell for about $200. That would make 100,000 board feet worth roughly $20,000.

“Dollar-wise, there’s a lot of wood down there,” he said.

Hiniker’s crews are only working part-time at the job, heading down to the grove a few days a week. It’s slow going, but he planned to have most of the usable lumber cleared in two weeks.

“It’s difficult to get through there,” Hiniker said. “You have to cut things out of your way.”