Lumber
By Larry Gill, Jr. submitted by
Sally Metcalf Dawson
Sawmills did a flourishing business in this
area after the railroad came through Beckville. Chaney, Foster, Yates, and Noble had mills
running by the time the track was laid. At first the timber was hauled to the sawmills
with ox teams but later horses and mules were used. The timber was shipped to market by
train. The early sawmills used steam power to run the saws. Wood was used as fuel.
The tall virgin pines were cut first. A lot of timber was wasted
because the stumps were cut several feet above the ground. Large tops and limbs were left
to decay. There was no sale for knotty wood. Many small trees were injured when the larger
trees fell on them. Later the sawmills began to cut some oak timber and occasionally sweet
gum and Cyprus were cut.
There are records of some really huge trees being harvested.
Bledsoe cut a tree that scaled over 2,500 board feet and that was just the trunk of the
tree up to the limbs. Another pine tree 28 feet in circumference and 100 feet high
produced three twelve foot cuts that scaled the same the entire length of the log. Still
another pine only two feet in diameter made ten cuts eight feet long for rails, 199 rails
in all. On Mr. Andrew Jordan’s land was an oak that made 900 rails eight feet long.
The early mills used only timber that would make at least ten or twelve inch planks.
During that time timber sold for sixty cents a thousand feet. There was never very large
sawmills in this area.
The virgin pine soon disappeared. Timber began to be scarce and
prices advanced which caused the sawmills to cut any size trees they could buy. Many times
a stand of timber was completely destroyed. The Forestry Service came into being and began
managing timberland for the farmers. They would mark the trees that should be cut. Due to
the recession that began 1981-1982, the building industry suffered a tremendous blow.
Consequently, the price of timber dropped for the first time in many years.
Today about the only lumber industry in the Beckville area is
pulpwood. Men drive their pulp wood trucks into the location of the trees, cut and load
the short logs, then haul them to the wood yard beside the railroad. The pulpwood is
shipped by train to the paper mill in Lufkin, Texas.
There is still some timber harvested in the Sabine River area.
There are practically no small sawmills in East Texas today. Most timber logs are hauled
by truck to large lumber companies. The lumber companies will buy sweet gum and oak, as
well as pine, if there is a market for that timber.