"A Journey through the Vast Downman Cypress Interests with Camera and Pen": Robert H. Downman's various cypress companies profiled in the American Lumberman magazine in 1905. Texas Transportation Archive Historical Notes

"A Journey through the Vast Downman Cypress Interests with Camera and Pen": Robert H. Downman's various cypress companies profiled in the American Lumberman magazine in 1905.

Source: American Lumberman. "A Journey through the Vast Downman Cypress Interests with Camera and Pen", American Lumberman, Aug 5, 1905 pp.43-82. Chicago: American Lumberman, 1905.

This long-form article is broken up into the following sections. Click to jump to that section:

I. The Downman Cypress Interests in Grand Review (overview)

IV. At Bowie.

VI. At New Iberia.

VIII. In Personnel. (biographical)

IX. In Conclusion.

THE DOWNMAN CYPRESS INTERESTS IN GRAND REVIEW.

It may not be exactly in the military order of things to have a review before the mobilization of troops and assembling of battalions, but inasmuch as this descriptive article concerning the R. H. Downman cypress interests of Louisiana is to differ in a material sense from that of any descriptive article heretofore printed in the AMERICAN LUMBERMAN and inasmuch as it will in the nature of the environments and extent of this business differ from any similar article that may follow, it may in every way be a law unto itself.

The reviewing stand will be a segregated affair situated in all countries the world around. It will consist of office chairs and the seats of rapidly moving trains and the cozy corners of homes. It will exist wherever the readers of this paper may happen to be when they come to this page. It is in the interest of the reader primarily that this out of order review is about to take place. Home things are to be explained which the reader must know before he gets down to the formation of the companies, battalions and regiments of facts.

This is not to be merely an exploitation for the sake of publicity, but a recitation of certain facts which will be of interest to all lumbermen, showing as it will how a proposition representing a few hundred thousand dollars has grown, in less than a decade, to an operation embracing in value more than $8,000,000,
all of it all of the time under the direct control and management of one man and his trusted lieutenants.

The R. H. Downman cypress interests consist of the Whitecastle Lumber & Shingle Company, Limited, at Whitecastle, La.; the Bowie Lumber Company, Limited, at Bowie, La.; the Jeanerette Lumber & Shingle Company, Limited, at Jeannette, La.; the Iberia Cypress Company, Limited, at New Iberia, La., and the Des Allemands Lumber Company, Limited, at Allemands, La. These companies form the largest operation in cypress manufacture and, considered from the standpoint of a personally conducted affair, it is very near the first among the six largest lumbering operations in the world, and as such deserves special attention.

Until the AMERICAN LUMBERMAN representatives essayed the thorough investigation of the R. H. Downman cypress interests for the purpose of writing this illustrated story of the growth of a great business under modern methods no concise and realistic story of cypress lumber production had ever before been attempted by the American lumber press.

How the Story Is Told.
The story will be told completely in both forms of exploitation. The pictures will tell the story of lumber production at each plant "from tree to trade" and the stories of the plants will be told in an illustrative way in the order in which they have been named.

The general plan of the text will tell the story and take up the facts in the order of early history, of timber and woods operations, of log handling and storage, of saw mills, dry kilns and yarding, of planing mills and sheds, of shipping the stock, of the general comfort of employees, telephones, water supply and fire protection and of commissary and hospital.

The First Outline Map.
One page near the end of this story is taken up with the first outline map of the red cypress territory of southeastern Louisiana ever produced in print. No government map is obtainable by the general public which truthfully portrays these water courses and no private enterprise has ever before undertaken to make such a map for general circulation.

The lands of the R. H. Downman cypress interests have been marked by Mr. Downman’s engineers and are shown on the map in regular and irregular squares of black. This map will be found of great interest.

Great Future of These Interests.
The cypress timber properties and plants of these five companies are located in the parishes of Iberville, Assumption, LaFourche, St. Martin, Iberia, St. Charles and St. John, in the state of Louisiana. The cypress timber holdings of the Downman interests at the time of going to press with this article aggregate 161,000 acres in extent. It is doubtful if the holdings will decrease in acreage for several years, because the Downman interests as a matter of policy are buying timber lands all the time and it is the ruling of the general management of these mills that this policy should continue.

The most exact estimate of the amount of cypress stumpage possible shows that these five mills own today not less than 1,250,000, 000 feet of standing cypress timber and at least 1,000,000,000 more of valuable hardwoods, the latter having only begun to be figured as an asset within the last two or three years.

Taking Mr. Downman’s carefully thought out opinion of the possible life of each one of the five plants, making a average, one finds that the average life holdings would be in excess of twenty-five years at the rate at which they are now cutting both cypress and hardwood lumber. With additional purchases of timber this time will, though, undoubtedly be extended.

Some Interesting Figures.
A section of that recently constructed railroad which is to do so much for the Whitecastle plant is used as a frontispiece to this article because it shows some of the difficulties which have been overcome by skillful engineering.

Coats & Burchard, the well known public appraisers, of Chicago, have made a very painstaking appraisal of the plants, logging and other operative properties of this business, from which many curious facts have been gleaned.

Many millions of figures have been made by some one or another to arrive at the statements which will be introduced into this grand review of the Downman interests; first because they are interesting and second because they are accurate and are in no sense the misleading or unlicensed statements of laymen.

Beginning at the railway and logging end of the Downman possessions one finds that there are nearly thirty-seven and one-half miles of railroad in operation; that there is in use over twenty-one miles of wire rope of all thicknesses; that cars of all sorts are in use to the number of 134; that the locomotives are eight in number; that five pullboats, five steamboats, four tugboats, seven sinker- boats, two wood and oil boats, four barges, four dredges and several dozen skiffs, pirogues etc. are used; that there are all told nine skidders in operation and that for the construction of railways three pile drivers usually are in commission.

Although these plants are not as a matter of policy run continuously day and night in any sense, there is an electric light plant at each one of these properties and in service are nearly fifty arc lamps and over 1,000 16-candlepower lights.

It is in the matter of protection against general conflagration that these five plants have been placed high in the opinion of the insurance surveyors of the country, as exact statistics show to be in commission nearly 13,500 feet of hose, nearly 150 hose pipes, nearly 800 water barrels, over 2,000 buckets, many wells, a half hundred tanks and over 30,000 feet of water pipe—all used as precautionary methods of arresting fire.

The appraisement of these several plants shows the present day value of the various machinery and equipment, buildings etc. from the tree side to the yarding of lumber, to be nearly $1,600,000, this feet alone giving some idea of the enormous character of the operations when it is realized that this money is used only as a means to make more money.

The Downman mills carry an average stock of 50,000,000 feet of lumber, 30,000,000 shingles, 7,000,000 lath and 1,000,000 pickets, always on hand.

The shipments of these mills for 1904 were in the neighborhood of 50,000,000 feet of lumber, 160,000,000 shingles and 25,000,000 lath.

The annual capacity of the five plants is 80,000,000 feet of lumber, 300,000,000 shingles and 48,000,000 lath.

Gathering the Information.
It is in the illustrations of the various plants that the LUMBERMAN takes particular pride. A very few pictures out of the many hundreds that were secured have been utilized. In proportion as these pictures are beautiful to behold they were professionally difficult to secure; and the writer might say now that it is finished that he is right glad to be “called from labor to refreshment."

Supply Should Govern Values.
When one has journeyed for six weeks by pirogue and tote road, by barge and by palatial steamboat, by dugout and canoe, by rail and by water, and on foot, through the cypress country he cannot help but remark before entering into the actual story of these various five properties that if it were desired to establish forever and a day the real intrinsic value of cypress lumber it would be an eminently wise thing for the cypress manufacturers to do to induce—at considerable expense—the leading retail lumber dealers of the country to make a series of just such trips as the AMERICAN LUMBERMAN representatives enjoyed in the cypress solitudes of Louisiana recently. One may venture the assertion that—when they had observed the difficulties of cypress lumber manufacture—it would have a wonderful effect in the matter of pushing cypress lumber values to where they rightly belong.

Story Told Geographically.
In telling the actual stories of these plants which will follow the writer will adhere largely to geographical lines, discussing the various matters under the names of the various towns to which the plants belong. And then in the end after a description of the plants a brief biography will be given of the men who, working together in harmony, have made this great manufacturing proposition possible.

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AT NEW ORLEANS.

On the tenth floor of the Hibernia Bank building, at New Orleans, La., is the office of R. H. Downman, and while this is also in a sense the central office of all the five companies in which Mr. Downman has interest it is also Mr. Downman’s office in a broader sense, being the central place for the transaction of his business in all lines whatsoever.

Besides this being Mr. Downman's personal office it is also the office of F. H. Lewis, an officer in many of the Downman lumber companies; of Sam R. Ely, assistant general manager of the lumber interests of R. H. Downman wherever situated; of E. L. Hunter, traffic manager for Mr. Downman and the various mills, and of J. W. McWilliams, general auditor for the Downman lumber interests.

This office is maintained by Mr. Downman in a personal sense and is utilized by the mills for their convenience in many ways.

The offices occupy rooms 1003, 1004, 1005 and 1006 in the Hibernia Bank building, on the floor mentioned, and are very commodious and beautifully fitted up.

Very nearly at the end of this 40-page article will be found a page taken up with illustrations, in the center of which the reader will find a picture of the Hibernia Bank building, surrounding which are pictures of the interiors of the offices, showing the various departments presided over actively by the several gentlemen just mentioned.

The Selling End.
The above caption is rather a misnomer and certainly misleading, as the reader might expect probably to find underneath it an account of the sales department of the Downman lumber interests. The subhead just above was introduced in order to attract the attention of the reader to the very few words which this article will contain concerning the sale of lumber.

Each mill has a particular person, of course, who looks after the proper invoicing of stock, and certain other persons whose business it is to look after the multitudinous correspondence, in some things each mill probably differing from all the others.

The New Orleans office is a sales department only in the sense that orders are received there and transmitted to the particular mill which can handle them the best, just as orders are received at any of the Downman mills and placed elsewhere with other Downman mills providing they cannot be expeditiously bandied by the particular mill receiving the order.

Just this much is said here to emphasize the fact which Mr. Downman desires to have brought out, which is that his lumber is for sale to the wide world through the legitimate wholesale and retail lumber trade. Many wholesalers of lumber have handled this stock for several years, selling many thousands of dollars’ worth annually, and will continue to; but no wholesaler of lumber has anything like a distinctively exclusive territory, the policy of the Downman interests being to make no such arrangement with anyone.

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AT WHITECASTLE.

Whitecastle is on the Texas & Pacific railway seventy-four miles from New Orleans and is reached by Western. Union telegraph and by Pacific express.

Situated at this place is the pioneer "dry land” cypress plant, the plant which was first known in cypress lumber production as a "railroad” proposition and a plant which bids fair to live as long in the future as it has in the past, having before it in prospect more than fifteen years of active business.

The corporate name of this concern is the Whitecastle Lumber & Shingle Company, Limited. The officers of the company are R. H. Downman, president and general manager; Sam R. Ely, vice president and assistant general manager; W. B. Brazelton, secretary and treasurer, and A. C. Johns, manager. Whitecastle has 1,800 inhabitants and is practically on the bank of the Mississippi river, where good dockage is afforded for steamboats, and thus has actual water communication with all the outside world.

Early History.
William Cameron and his associates became interested in Whitecastle as a cypress lumbering point in 1888. Those in interest were William Cameron, R. H. Downman, W. B. Brazelton, C. L. Johnson, George M. Bowie and Fred Meyer.

The first proposition contemplated a little mill which they found at Whitecastle when they came. The first purchase of timber amounted to 12,000 acres. The little mill that was there was making shingles and it was utilized for the sawing of timbers for the erection of the new plant. The plant which was erected was begun in 1889, began running in 1890 and is still running.

This plant has been considered as a model by many. It has been really one of the most successful saw mills ever erected in the southern country, its dividends probably aggregating more money considering the investment than has been returned from any similarly situated proposition in the United States.

Capt. George M. Bowie, so well and favorably known in all the southland as a successful managing man in lumber interests, took charge of the business as manager in the fall of 1890. Up to the present time there has been cut and marketed from the Whitecastle plant upward of 250,000,000 feet of cypress lumber—that is, counting shingles and all, in lumber feet.

The Cutover Lands.
A feature of the lumbering at Whitecastle that cannot be spoken of under any other subhead than this of "Early History" is the disposition that is being made of the land that has been cut over. Those lands that have been entirely denuded are found to dry out rapidly and become the most valuable sugar planting land known in the state. Experience with the lands at Whitecastle has established a policy among the Downman managers looking in the direction of colonization.

A Change In Management.
Capt. George M. Bowie left the management of the plant in April, 1901, and at that time R. H. Downman purchased his interest. Then, in June, 1902, W. B. Brazelton and R. H. Downman bought out the Cameron interests. Mr. Downman is in control of the stock, but Mr. Brazelton is very active in the company.
A. C. Johns took charge of the company as manager May 1, 1904. Coming as he did from the management of Mr. Downman’s yard at San Antonio, Tex., and having had a long acquaintance with Mr. Downman, Mr. Johns fitted at once and admirably into the responsible position.

The Story of Whitecastle Timber.
In the years that have gone since the plant was established at Whitecastle 10,000 acres of cypress land has been cut over to get the amount of lumber and shingles indicated by the statement made in the "Early History" division of this article concerning lumber production at Whitecastle. The timber holdings of the company are in Assumption and Iberville parishes.

The life of this plant has been extended very largely by the building of the Lake Natchez branch of the Whitecastle & Lake Natchez road, a very difficult piece of engineering which has put Whitecastle into communication with all the cypress district of southeastern Louisiana. The hardwoods on this land have not been touched and are estimated by Mr. Downman to amount to not less than 200,000,000 feet, combining hardwoods of all kinds indigenous to that section. A very large proportion of these hardwoods of course is bay poplar, which is, as is well known, coming into general use at the present time, as its good qualities are becoming known.

An arrangement has just been consummated for the manufacture of staves, heading and hoops at Whitecastle. The Whitecastle Cooperage Company, Limited, will be the name of the company, with Dr. James B. Patterson, of Detroit, Mich., as president. The Platz brothers, of Michigan, will be in active charge. This factory will utilize in some measure the vast quantity of hardwoods so easy of access.

Woods Operations at Whitecastle.
Inasmuch as the Whitecastle Lumber & Shingle Company, Limited, was the pioneer in woods operations by rail, it may be expected that by this time the woods operations at that place have been developed to the acme of perfection.

The Whitecastle & Lake Natchez railroad has a total length all told, including the spurs in the yard and elsewhere, of a little more than eighteen and three-fourths miles. It is fair to estimate that it is, in many parts of it, the most expensive railroad that has ever been built for the purpose of carrying logs to a mill—certainly the most expensive of any in that part of the south. Mr. Downman’s engineers and operators in railroad building have been pretty faithfully busy at the work of extending the road to Lake Natchez for the last two years. The great frontispiece of this article shows a portion of that line just completed, all on its high but very solid piles, running straight through the woods.

The Woods Equipment.
This road employs altogether three locomotives to haul logs and do the other necessary work of a logging railroad.

There are all told three Lidgerwood skidders in use. There is one pile driver that has been in commission for months, actively engaged in assisting in the building of the road to Lake Natchez.

The logs at Whitecastle are not put into the water, as they are at most mills, but are dumped onto a log ramp of large area that is conveniently situated at the tail of the mill and are handled into the saw mill by a skidder contrivance that is in commission for that purpose alone.

The Saw Mill at Whitecastle.
The Texas & Pacific road at Whitecastle runs due east and west and from the south windows of a northbound train is seen the plant. The office of the company is close to the railway track.

The saw mill is the most prominent building of the plant and it stands a slight degree to the southwest, but on a line almost due north and south. Over the north end of the saw mill are the large letters which hark one back to the days of William Cameron. They spell out in no uncertain terms "Cypress Queen."

This building is irregular in shape, with boiler house and engine room on the cast side. The building is 173 feet and 5 inches over all in length and has a breadth of 103 feet 8 inches.

The boiler house is built of stone and brick and is fireproof in construction. This house contains a battery of five boilers 48 inches in diameter and 16 feet long which are horizontal tubular affairs nested over Dutch ovens. The furnaces are fed with sawdust direct and by automatic conveyors.

To the north of the boiler house building is a 1-story brick engine house. It contains one 20x42 inch Reynolds-Corliss engine, built by the Allis-Chalmers Company; one 8x5x10 Marsh duplex pump, and one 36-inch 8-foot tubular water heater.

The saw mill is divided into ground floor, subdeck, engine room, dynamo room and mill deck.

The principal ground floor machinery consists of a Garland 3-arm steam log stop; stationary steam nigger; 12x20 Cunningham twin engine feed; one steam jump saw 7x28 inches; one 10x14 center crank slide valve engine; one 8-kilowatt 125-volt dynamo; one 25-kilowatt electrical generator; one 6x12 slide valve engine; one 24-inch upright drill press; one single knot saw, and several other pieces of machinery of minor importance.

The principal subdeck machinery consists of one 6-saw shingle edger; one single knot saw; one combination lath binder and trimmer; one iron frame 3-saw lath machine; one iron frame 3-saw lath bolter; one 36-inch hog; one hand shingle machine, and one iron frame swing saw, with other smaller machines too numerous to mention.

The mill deck of the saw mill is provided with a log haulup 304 feet long; one double overhead canter; one No. 1-1/2 right hand Allis band mill; one 30-foot 5-block carriage; one 54-inch gang edger; one 24-foot gang lumber trimmer; one gang slab slasher; one steam cutoff saw for 40-inch saw; one wooden frame knee bolter, with 48-inch saw; one automatic double block shingle machine for 38- inch saws; one automatic double block shingle machine for 30-inch saws; one hand saw sharpening machine with 22- inch cutter saws.

There is over 3,000 feet of belting of all sizes in this mill and the mill contains over 350 saw mill tools. The mill is fitted with thirteen stations of the Newman watchman system, with clocks.

Planing Mill and Sash and Doors.
The planing mill at Whitecastle is really the planing mill and sash and door factory in a departmental sense. The building is 88 feet 6 inches one way and 190 feet 5 inches the other.

Near that building is the boiler house, 34 feet by 45 feet 5 inches, and near this building also is the shavings vault, 25 feet 3 inches by 34 feet in area. In the boiler house referred to is a battery of two boilers, each 60 inches in diameter by 20 feet long and of the tubular variety, and from this boiler house a steel smokestack 42 inches in diameter ascends 88 feet. In this building are two Sims water filters.

The engine house adjacent to the boiler house has one 15x18 inch right hand slide valve engine; one automatic 12x16 inch left hand high speed balance valve engine; one 16-kilowatt electric generator; one 8 x 4-1/2 x 10 inch single steam Hughes pump; one Covel saw sharpener for 72-inch saws; one 30-inch automatic planer knife grinder, and some other minor machines not necessary to be mentioned here.

Planing Mill and Other Machinery.
There is an extremely large number of machines in this department of the Whitecastle plant and they are worth mentioning in detail if for no better reason than to construct a sentence in English which would contain them all—but there is not room for such an enormity in a detailed way.

Stock and Shipping at Whitecastle.
The lumber sheds at Whitecastle are very complete affairs. There is one north of the Texas & Pacific railway switch which runs north and west through the yard, which is 22 feet 3 inches by 227 feet in area, including a 12 by 277 foot platform extending along the Texas So Pacific switch south of the shed.

Another is a building 48 feet 5 inches by 68 feet 6 inches. There is one 50 by 130 feet. Southwest of these latter two named sheds is a building 20 by 90 feet. East of the planing mill is a shed 15 feet 5 inches by 49 feet 8 inches. Between the planing mill and the dry kiln mentioned first is a very large shed 71 feet 7 inches by 86 feet 3 inches, known as the planing mill shed. This building contains a self feed rip saw with iron frame and two power drum rolls, and one 5-foot cutoff saw.

The principal dry kilns are located on the direct runway from the tail of the mill to the northwest and just at the left as one goes out is a stacking shed which is 20 feet 2 inches by 28 feet 9 inches. This contains a steam lumber stacker which puts the lumber in stack for the kilns about to be described.

Just west of the planing mill is a small steam dry kiln 20 by 50-1/2 feet in size. The principal kilns are two in number; one is 23 feet 4 inches by 91 feet 6 inches and is a 1-story brick, with a charging platform 23 feet 4 inches by 40 feet, located south of the kiln; another is a 1-story frame and brick metal clad structure 24 feet 8 inches by 100 feet 4 inches. There is a cooling shed 41 by 99 feet at the northwest end of the two kilns.

Another cooling shed in this vicinity is 22 feet 6 inches by 51 feet and a dry lumber shed is 56 feet 3 inches by 121 feet. North of the Texas & Pacific tracks is a 1-story frame dry lumber shed 20 feet 6 inches by 104 feet, which stands opposite the dry kiln.

The piling grounds for the lumber are of sufficient capacity in area to hold 15,000,000 feet of lumber in stock. The stock at Whitecastle is piled down and up and in no case in very high piles. A track of 40-pound rail over three-quarters of a mile long runs from the plant to the river for convenience in handling lumber etc. and bringing back freight brought by boat from New Orleans and elsewhere.

Fire Protection.
The pump house is located near the mill and has one water tank tower. A drilled well east of the mill is 185 feet deep, from which water is drawn for use through the pump house. This pump house contains a duplex steam pump of the Worthington make.

West of the blacksmith shop is the city pump and boiler house; south of this is the city reservoir, 37 by 61 feet, and west of the reservoir is the city water tower. This equipment was originally built by the company and sold to the town of Whitecastle, and is operated yet by the company under contract for the general welfare of the community.

The complementary tools and accessories for fire protection at Whitecastle consist farther of over 3,200 feet of hose, about 30 hose pipes, over 200 barrels of water ready for use, nearly 350 buckets, two wells, seven tanks of various sizes and a complete sprinkler system with 672 heads.

The total of complete water pipe at the Whitecastle plant is exactly 7,381 feet. Three hose carts are ready tor active use at a moment’s notice. In the collateral part of the fire protection might well be mentioned the refuse burner, which is 24 feet in diameter and 80 feet tall, with screen hood, and which is lined with fire brick. This refuse burner is located sixty feet to the west of the north end of the mill and is a very material portion of the security of the company against fire.

Electric Lights at Whitecastle.
The electric light plant at Whitecastle is very complete, as will have been discovered already in some measure by the description of the dynamos and the necessary power employed to run it.

This light is distributed throughout the plant and town by something like 350 16-candlepower incandescent lamps and seven are lights.

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AT BOWIE.

Bowie, La., is situated forty-one miles from New Orleans on the Southern Pacific road, has Western Union telegraph and Wells-Fargo express, and has 1,250 inhabitants.

At Bowie is located the Bowie Lumber Company, Limited, successor to the estate of William Cameron, manufacturer of Louisiana red cypress lumber, shingles and lath, sash, doors, blinds, flooring, ceiling, siding, molding etc. and sawn and hewn timbers and ties.

The officers of this company are R. H. Down- man, president and general manager; Sam R. Ely, assistant general manager; Frederick H. Lewis, vice president, and J. F. Wigginton, secretary, treasurer and manager.

Early History.
Bowie stands today primarily as a monument to the erudition and foresight of William Cameron persisted in against all kinds of opposition and oceans of advice which almost any other man would have taken.

William Cameron made his first purchases of land there early in 1895 and from several interests. These purchases amounted to about 25,000 acres. This first purchase of course has been added to until the holdings now amount to 60,000 acres all told, 20,000 acres of which is still covered with virgin cypress forest.

This was the first attempt in cypress history to log a low swamp cypress brake by rail. The number of years that this has been done successfully and the number of years of lumbering that are yet to come to Bowie are all the evidence necessary to prove that the projector was correct in his ideas.

Many Mill Improvements.
Since 1895 the company has cut over 27,500 acres of cypress land and has produced and marketed 260,000,000 feet of cypress lumber, about 12,500 acres of the possessions being plantation lands.

At the very inception of the business was built the magnificent double band mill yet doing business at that point. This was one of the first great double band mills used in cypress lumber manufacture.

William Cameron remained personally in charge of the plant until July, 1897, at which time the late T. Gordon Reddy became manager, and great improvements were made under his management in the building up of the town and the providing of better accommodations for the men. Not much was added to the plant during his regime, but outside affairs were very much improved; the dry kilns were installed and commodious storage sheds built, with extensive runways for the more economical handling of the product. Additions were made to the hotel and store buildings during that time. Mr. Reddy did much toward systematizing the operations and also establishing and maintaining good order in the town—not a difficult task with the easy going and well disposed mill employees.

T. Gordon Reddy died in January, 1901, and just before that time the company was incorporated as the Bowie Lumber Company, Limited.

Bowie Timber and Lands.
The timber of the company is all located in LaFourche parish, the timber now ahead of the mill being the finest the Bowie Lumber Company, Limited, has ever owned.

Many of the high places in the swamps are high enough and suitable for cultivation. It is necessary to dredge some of the land to get the timber and the dredging acts as drainage to the other parts as well. The LaFourche levee board has put in a large number of drainage canals, notably a canal from Lake Boeuf to Bayou LaFourche, with the double purpose of securing drainage and putting fresh water in the bayou. The Bowie lands are considered of great value by the company and will be held for future development.

Woods Operations at Bowie.
The woods operations of the Bowie Lumber Company are the largest of any in connection with the Downman possessions. The logs are put in by seven skidders and pullboats all told and are transported by railroad and by water to the log pond, illustrations of which are given.

The pullboats are used as pullboats elsewhere in the cypress section to take up scattered timber at remote places where it is not feasible to build railroad tracks. The skidders are operated on the branch lines, which are placed at regular distances of 1,400 feet, the skidders pulling from each side a distance of 700 feet.

There is one logging camp four and a half miles out at Coteau, where a store and machine shop, a school house, many lodging houses, boarding house and the homes of several of the logging crew are maintained.

In logs it is aimed to store up always in the log pond about 1,000,000 feet and as much as 2,000,000 feet -- oft times of pullboat timber -- in Bayou Boeuf at the hoist where the loading on the cars is done.

Hauling Logs to the Mill.
Most of the logs are brought in over the Bowie, LaFourche & Northwestern railroad, which is a standard gage, using 60-pound rail. A great deal of this line is ballasted with sawdust; part of it is trestle track, built on piling. This is the perfected road which was begun by William Cameron and has been largely built by first throwing in brush, poles etc. along the right of way for a mattress for the sawdust and top ballast. The logs are brought in and dumped automatically into a made pond which holds over 1,000,000 feet.

A deep water canal is dredged from Bowie to Lake Boeuf, where the logs are towed to the mill and hoisted into this same pond by a steam derrick.

The Bowie, LaFourche & Northwestern road, plus the tracks in the yard at Bowie, constitutes a railway 12-1/2 miles in extent. The log cars at Bowie are sixty-six in number. There are all told four locomotives in commission. Along the line of the railway are two pile drivers in commission.

The camp and house boats of the Bowie Lumber Company are six in number. The company owns no steamboats. It has one tugboat, two sinkerboats and one woodboat in commission.

The Saw Mill at Bowie.
The saw mill at Bowie was built in 1895 and originally contained two McDonough band mills. Since then 12-inch shotgun feeds have been put in in each case, the carriages equipped with friction set works and a Filer & Stowell mill put in on one side, while one of the mills is yet a McDonough and doing fine service. The Filer & Stowell mill is a 9-foot Star band. The daily capacity of the saw mill is 150,000 feet of lumber, 350,000 shingles and 50,000 lath. The mill building is a 2-story affair and stands east and west in general direction and is built very heavy.
The lumber and slabs are carried away by live rolls to the edger, thence over the trimmer and on conveyors into the sorting shed. The slabs are carried through the slasher and cut into 4-foot lengths for use in the shingle and lath mill and practically all refuse is utilized. Some of this is ground up through a hog for fuel and some of it is utilized as ballast for the railroads.

There is one double edger and trimmer on the saw floor which trims up to twenty- four feet. In the mill on the saw floor is a 10-blocker Challoner shingle machine and one hand machine and on the lower floor is a Challoner spaulting machine. On the saw mill floor is a lath mill equipment capable of making 65,000 lath daily.

In the Boiler House.
To the north of the saw mill is the boiler house, built of brick with a metallic roof and cement floor, practically fireproof. It contains eight boilers, generating, all told, 1,000 horsepower.

This power is transmitted by a Corliss engine, size 24x48. The engine room is to the east and adjoining the boiler room.

In the boiler house are two pumps—one 6x10x12 and one 4-1/2x10x12. These pumps are attached to the water mains also to be used in case of the main fire pumps being found out of commission.

Stock and Shipping at Bowie.
The lumber is sorted from the mill conveyor and a large portion is sent to the dry kilns by the overhead trams and by mule dollies. The remainder of the stock is handled by 4-wheeled dollies to the lumber yard and remains in stock until in shipping condition. The lumber is sorted as to uppers and lower grades at the mill, the actual grading being done after going through the kilns or being dried on the yards. Nothing thicker than 2-inch is put in the kilns.

Drying the Lumber at Bowie.
The time required for drying lumber at Bowie is for 1-inch ten days, 1-1/4 inch thirteen days, 1-1/2 inch fifteen days and 2-inch twenty days.

The artificial drying of cypress lumber at Bowie has reached the height of perfection. The drying of cypress is necessarily slow, in order that it may not be case- hardened. The Bowie plan has been found a very effective one.
The kilns are four in number; built of brick and steel, with foundation walls thirteen inches thick. The four rooms are each 20 by 120 feet in size.

Each room is heated by over 15,000 feet of 1-inch steam pipe. The heat is kept in circulation by a system of ventilation. These kilns are 600 feet north of the saw mill building. The lumber goes into the kilns from a platform on the west which is 140 by 160 feet in area, the capacity of this platform being 375,000 feet of lumber.

Grading and Sheds at Bowie.
East of the kilns is an immense cooling shed with a capacity of 750,000 feet of lumber. This cooling shed is supported entirely by ten posts or trusses, leaving the entire floor space clear for work. From floor to comb board this cooling shed is 36 feet, making it the coolest and most airy spot at the plant at all times.

The lumber from the sheds at Bowie is elaborately graded and goes either into cars for shipment or to the planing mill or is stored in the dry shed 210 feet east of the dry kilns, to which point connection is had by elevated tramways. The dry shed is 110 feet in width, 365 feet in length and supported by very few posts, and will hold between 4,000,000 and 5,000,000 feet of lumber. This dry shed is connected by tramway on the east end with the planing mill, 210 feet distant.

The Planing Mill at Bowie.
The planing mill at Bowie is contained in a building 60 by 180 feet in area. The machinery in the planing mill is run by a separate power plant which contains one boiler 72 inches in diameter and 16 feet long; one engine, size 18x48. The machines of the planing mill consist of one surfacer, two matchers, three molders, one band resaw, one picket machine, one circular resaw, two gang rip saws, three cutoff saws and four machines for the manufacture of cisterns and tanks.

The shavings from the planing mill are carried away by a double 72-inch Sturtevant blower and conveyed to the planing mill and saw mill boiler houses, 1,250 feet.

The yard at Bowie is laid out with three main alleys, running east and west, with cross alleys. These alleys are numbered from 1 to 17. The piling space in this yard will permit of 25,000,000 feet of lumber being stored and for protection against fire is supplied with a system of piping and other appliances.

There are two switch tracks of the Southern Pacific in the yard, one running through the rough lumber yard and the other the length of the planing mill dry shed dry kilns, making a loading space along the tracks of nearly two miles in extent, along both of the tracks.

With all the sheds contiguous to these tracks it is possible to ship dry finished lumber at any time regardless of the weather. Cross ties, bill stuff etc. are shipped in the rough and green state and are loaded direct onto the cars from the docks at the saw mill, rendering other handlings unnecessary.

The lumber at Bowie is well taken care of, being neatly stacked, stripped and covered, each pile having sufficient openings to admit plenty of air, all lengths being piled separately and separated as to alleys.

Electric Lights and Telephones.
The electric lighting system at Bowie is a very fine affair. It includes two dynamos, one with power for 250 16-candlepowcr lamps, the other having 500 16-candlepower light capacity. Of course not that many lamps are in use. These dynamos are run by a 10x12 engine. In addition to the lights mentioned are three arc lights.

The company has the Cumberland long distance telephone as well as local service. For the company’s use has been installed a private line with six instruments, located at the stores, saw mill, planing mill, Southern Pacific depot and the logging camps. This telephone line has just been rebuilt and has the most modern instruments.

Water Supply and Fire Protection.
The water supply for the use of Bowie families is taken from cypress cisterns. The boiler supply is taken from a fresh water canal two and one-half miles long, which canal is an important factor in fire protection as well.

The water is forced through the water pipes with which the yards and town of Bowie are supplied by a large fire pump located in a special house built for that purpose near the mill building. This fire pump is 8x14x12 in size.

An elevated tank, 100 feet high, which holds 65,000 gallons, is a feature of the water supply service. It is about twenty feet in diameter and is of a conical form.

A great source of fire protection at Bowie is a water jacket on the refuse burner which is 2-1/2 feet thick, runs fifty feet in height and holds 75,000 gallons of water.

Ready for instant use at Bowie are 2,950 feet of hose, 22 hose pipes, 114 filled water barrels, 182 buckets for speedy use, located in the proper places; and five tanks besides those that have had particular mention. Throughout the yard and town 7,430 feet of water pipe has been laid. There are in use two hose carts and nine hone houses located at various places throughout the properties where they will be of the greatest service. Altogether there are fourteen double hydrants outside of the buildings and twenty- seven single hydrants inside of the buildings.

The yard men at Bowie are organized under the head of the foremen for fire service.

The Bowie Lumber Company, Limited, maintains a large, roomy hotel at Bowie for employees who have no families and who desire to board. It is electric lighted throughout. At Coteau a boarding house is maintained for the same purpose. At Bayou Coteau and Bayou Boeuf are altogether 165 buildings which are owned by the Bowie Lumber Company, Limited.

The company employs a physician whose business it is to take care of the families and persons in the employ of the company. The doctor has a regular salary and employees are assessed for that service, the assessment entitling the people to the doctor's services in sickness or accident. During the entire history of the Bowie Lumber Company there has never been recorded a suit for damages. The company maintains a complete drug store in Bowie.

The Bowie Lumber Company, Limited, looks especially after the schooling of the youth of the community at the various villages. There is a school at Bowie, another at Coteau, another at Bayou Boeuf and another at the Malagay settlement. The company, of course, has in all cases paid the cost of erection of the school houses.

The Bowie Lumber Company, Limited, even goes so far as to pledge to the parish officers at Thibodaux the quiet and peace of the locality. Men associated with the management of the company are delegated to see that all the pledges of the company shall be carried out; thus the community's peace is guarded and cared for by the corporation that has made possible and necessary the existence of the little community.

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AT JEANERETTE.

Jeanerette, La., is located in Iberia parish, 114 miles from New Orleans, on the Southern Pacific railway, and is the home of the Jeanerette Lumber & Shingle Company, Limited, which manufactures band sawed Louisiana red cypress lumber and shingles, doors, sash and blinds.

The plant of this company has a daily capacity of 75,000 feet from the saw mill, 200,000 shingles and 25,000 lath. The officers of the company are: R. H. Downman, president and general manager; Sam R. Ely, assistant general manager; H. B. Hewes, vice president and treasurer, and F. H. Lewis, secretary.

Jeanerette is reached by Western Union telegraph and Wells-Fargo express and has 3,500 inhabitants.

Early History.
The first mill was built here in 1883 by B. Milmo and J. W. Stokoe, under the firm name of Milmo & Stokoe. That was in the days when lumbermen depended entirely upon overflow for their cypress timber and also too when a float could be depended upon each year.

The first cypress lumber made by this concern was sold in Texas and it was begun by marketing the clears, which built up a good trade for shingles as well.

The partnership of Milmo & Stokoe continued until 1887, when the firm Milmo, Stokoe & Co. was formed and H. B. Hewes was taken into partnership. That partnership of Milmo, Stokoe & Co. flourished until the death of Mr. Milmo, April 1, 1891.

On September 14, 1894, the company was incorporated under its present style with J. W. Stokoe as president, H. B. Hewes as vice president, treasurer and general manager, and J. B. Milmo as secretary. It was then too that the company began the building of a band mill which was operated in March, 1895. This was a single band affair.

Some Fire Losses.
The lumber and planing mill was destroyed by fire on October 2, 1896, and the company sustained a loss of $90,000, with $40,000 insurance.

On May 1, 1898, the saw mill was destroyed by fire with $60,000 loss and $30,000 insurance and was rebuilt in the fall of 1898 and sawing began in the spring of 1899. It was then that the company put in its double cutting Allis- Chalmers bund mill, which is the first double cutting band mill ever built.

Double Cutter Increases Capacity.
Mr. Stokoe was a mechanical genius who had perfected many pieces of planing mill and saw mill specialties. He saw at once the great advantage to be gained by using a double cutting mill. It had to be worked out on proper lines and Mr. Stokoe was evidently equal to the matter. Mr. Hewes is authority for the statement that the double cutting mill has from the first increased capacity from 38 to 40 percent.

Had Bought Much Timber Early.
In 1888, 1889 and 1890 the company bought much timber from the state. This is today one of the most valuable assets of the company—one steadily increasing in value, as is the case with timber everywhere.
The company has a certain life ahead of it of at least a quarter of a century.
The first pullboat was built in 1888. It was a very crude affair as compared with the pullboat of today and would pull from 12,000 to 25,000 feet only when the boats of today will pull from 45,000 to 50,000 feet.

Modern Improvements and Changes In Personnel.
This company, as well as other companies in that section, worked by pullboats until 1899, and in that year the Jeanerette people put in their first skidder.

The Milmoes sold their interests in the company to William Cameron & Co. in September, 1899. In the years since 1888 the company has—while it has been cutting lumber all the time— been increasing its holdings until it today possesses 300,000,000 feet of standing cypress timber, located on 28,000 acres of land.

The Jeanerette Timber.
Camp Number One is in St. Martin’s parish on Belle river, by water twenty miles from Morgan City and seventy miles from Jeanerette. There the company has seven miles of railroad laid with 40-pound steel, one locomotive and one skidder. The crew is operating now about 3-1/2 miles from Belle river. To get to that camp from Jeanerette one goes down the Bayou Teche to the lower Atchafalaya, through Flat lake into Bayou Long, from Bayou Long into Belle river.

A Comfortable Camp.
The men have comfortable homes at this skidder camp, which includes a store, all located on high ground. The logs are boomed up and hauled to Jeanerette by the steamer Amy Hewes, which is a fine passenger boat and one of the finest towboats in these waters, being 112 feet long and of 25 feet beam. This boat cost to build $15,000 and is run with a crew of fourteen men. It handles 1,000,000 feet of logs in a tow.

The company owns another boat called the Whiz, built about 1894. This boat has been refitted recently with new boilers; it is 6-1/2 feet beam, 36 feet over all and has a speed record of sixteen miles an hour.

At Skidder Number Two.
On the east side of Lake Verret, about twenty-one miles from Morgan City, about seventy-one miles from Jeanerette and about twenty-eight miles from Belle river, is Skidder Camp Number Two.

Owned here by the company is 75,000,000 feet of timber which must be taken off in six years, according to contract, This timber is in township 14, Assumption parish, and is located on about 3,500 acres of land. The company will not have to build much more than five miles of railroad to got this timber, which runs very large. It is from this timber that the picture was selected to exemplify the Jeanerette Lumber & Shingle Company's interests in timber in this article. This timber —large as it is—is very free from defects and runs from 60 to 70 feet to the first limb.

The Pullboat Camp.
The pullboat camp of the company is on Bayou Cocodria, on the north side of Flat lake, by water from Morgan City about seven miles, and fifty-five miles from Jeanerette. This camp is about twenty-six miles as the crow flies from Jeanerette. The pullboat running at that point makes an average draw of from forty to fifty logs each day.

The Jeanerette Lumber & Shingle Company, Limited, owns not less than 28,000 acres of land, all told, in St. Martin and Assumption parishes.

The timber is boomed always and towed through the various rivers and lakes necessary to reach the Bayou Teche and boomed along the side of the Bayou near the saw mill at Jeanerette.

The Saw Mill at Jeanerette.
The saw mill at Jeanerette was built in 1899 and is a high class, successful Allis Chalmers double cutting band. The man who planned the mill was the well known George H. Kelly. The boilers from which the power is generated to run this mill are five in number and produce 600 horsepower. The pumps are two in number. The engine is a Corliss, 24x48 in size. The battery of boilers referred to runs the sash and door factory, lath and shingle mills and dry kilns.

On the Saw Floor.
On the saw floor besides the double cutting band referred to is a Prescott double edger and a 6-foot Allis trimmer. The feed is a shotgun 14x18 made by A. F. Bartlett, of Saginaw. The shingle mill was made by Perkins & Co., of Grand Rapids, Mich., and is a rotary. It was, however, designed by Mr. Stokoe after his own patterns and ideas. It is a 14-block mill.

Placing the daily capacity of this mill at 75,000 feet of lumber, 200,000 shingles and 25,000 lath is a very moderate and conservative estimate.

Stock and Shipping at Jeanerette.
The lumber is sorted in a device of the company’s which works by a system of live rolls, raising up at the pull of a lever and rolling the lumber off onto dollies, which dollies carry the lumber to the yard. These dollies are rolled by men. In the yard the lumber is piled down and up and is placed in the most favorable position for air drying, which is really the particular specialty of manufacture at Jeanerette. There is piling space near the mill and farther south for 16,000,000 feet. The company has two kilns, one for shingles and the other for siding strips, which are 18 by 120 feet in size and are created and operated on a scheme peculiarly local to the Jeanerette plant.

All of the product of this mill goes to the yard except the strips.

The Jeanerette people have a large railroad bill stuff trade and a trade in ties. This company also enjoys a very large siding trade.

Planing Mill and Door Factory.
The planing mill and sash and door factory is all in one building, which is 80 by 120 feet in area and is located just cast of the saw mill. The planing mill is on the lower floor and the sash and door factory is upstairs. The planing mill consists of eight machines and is run by an Allis-Chalmers Corliss high speed 16x30 engine which runs all the machinery, in fact, of both the mill and the sash and door factory.

In this mill, on the second floor, is a full complement of sash, door and blind machinery able to make anything used in the trade. There is a dressed lumber
shed 88 by 160 feet in size near the planing mill and sash and door factory, but very little lumber is kept on hand, being mostly dressed on orders. A great deal of lumber is shipped to points in the Teche country. As six acres of land was added recently the yard is ample.

Comfort of the People.
The Jeanerette Lumber & Shingle Company, Limited, practically pays off in cash once a week. This concern also has a local physician, maintained by the men on the assessment plan. An agreement with the men entitles them to half pay during periods of disability if injured while working for the company.

Electric Lights at Jeanerette.
The electric lighting system at Jeanerette has been changed and increased this summer. The company now has a 220-volt Eddy generator; has in use on the yard and in various parts of the plant eleven enclosed arc lights and 140 16-candlepower lamps. The dynamo is located in the engine room.

Fire Protection at Jeanerette.
The system of fire protection at Jeanerette is very complete. In use are nearly 3,000 feet of hose, a dozen or more hose pipes, over 200 barrels filled with water ready for use, over 200 buckets for immediate utilization, three elevated tanks, and besides this the plant is thoroughly sprinkled in every part, with nearly 800 sprinkler heads throughout all the various buildings.

There is exactly 4,411 feet of all kinds of water pipe on the property and the water is taken directly from Bayou Teche in great abundance, and besides all that is an 8-inch artesian well. It may be seen that the plant at Jeanerette can be very easily and completely protected. The artesian well spoken of is a flowing affair, yielding fine water. The main piping about the plant is 4 and 6 inch; the fire pump is a Smith- Vaile, with a capacity of 700 gallons a minute, and double hydrants are everywhere available throughout the premises.

The main tank is 70 feet high and holds 35,000 gallons of water. Besides that the pipes of the plant are connected with the city waterworks and there has just been completed a city waterworks tank of 100,000-gallon capacity located on an elevation of more than 140 feet, at a cost of $10,000, which when in full commission makes the fire protection system of Jeanerette well nigh perfect.

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AT NEW IBERIA.

New Iberia, La., is situated on the Southern Pacific railway, 126 miles from New Orleans; has Wells-Fargo express and Western Union and Postal telegraph lines. New Iberia has 12,000 inhabitants.

Situated there of interest to us in this article is the Iberia Cypress Company, Limited, of which R. H. Downman is president and general manager; Sam R. Ely, assistant general manager; Frederick H. Lewis, vice president; J. F. Wigginton, secretary and treasurer, and George W. Dallas, manager.

This company manufactures Louisiana red cypress lumber, shingles, ceiling, siding, molding, ties, timber, cisterns, sash, doors, blinds etc.

The daily capacity of the New Iberia plant is 50,000 feet of lumber, 100,000 shingles and 25,000 lath. It is the company’s aim to keep on hand an average stock of lumber of about 6,000,000 feet; of shingles, 5,000,000, and of lath, 3,000,000.

Early History.
A saw mill had been built on the site of what is now the Iberia Cypress Company’s mill by Gebart & Russell in 1885. In 1887 Mr. Russell sold his interest to Gebart & Son. In 1889 this firm was succeeded by Aucoin, Breaux & Renoudet. G. W. Broughton and George W. Dallas were admitted to the firm in August, 1889, and the name was changed to the Acouin, Breaux & Renoudet Company. In 1891 the saw mill, planing mill and sash and door factory were built.

At the death of Mr. Aucoin, in 1893, the remaining partners purchased his interest and organized the Breaux, Renoudet Cypress Company, Limited. That company continued until 1898, at which time George W. Dallas bought out G. W. Broughton and then the company’s name was changed to the P. L. Renoudet Cypress Company, Limited, which company was composed of P. L. Renoudet, Joseph Breaux and George W. Dallas.

In December, 1901, R. H. Downman bought the entire concern. The Iberia Cypress Company, Limited, was organized in 1902 with the gentlemen named as officers. At that time the company had a saw mill, planing mill, sash and door factory, a mill site of forty five acres and about 22,000 acres of timber.

Since that time the company has built four dry kilns, unloading and cooling shed, dry lumber shed, store building, hotel, cottages, two steamboats, one dredgeboat, one pullboat and five large barges and the timber land holdings have increased 10,000 acres, which will be added to before the end of the year by the purchase of at least 3,000 acres more, which will increase the acreage to 35,000 and put the Iberia Cypress Company, Limited, in possession of enough timber to provide for its present plant for fifty years.

Story of Iberia Timber.
This company owns at least 500,000,000 feet of cypress. There is really no way of getting at the number of millions of feet of "other woods." The timber of this company is in Iberia, St. Martin, St. Mary, Iberville and Assumption parishes.

Woods Operations at New Iberia.
The logs cut by the Iberia Cypress Company, Limited, are towed an average distance of 150 miles, so that a very superior steamboat—the Sadie Downman—is employed for that work.

This boat is five years old, was built at New Iberia and is worth $15,000. She is 110 feet in length over all, is of 24-foot beam and is 31 foot across guards. This boat has towed 1,450 logs from Lake Long to New Iberia, 104 miles, in six days; these logs were in eleven booms and this means 1,250,000 feet long run. Another boat soon will be in commission.

The company is now operating at Buffalo Cove, 104 miles distant by water from New Iberia. It will soon be at Blue Point, another logging location in that territory. Buffalo Cove is at the north end of Grand lake and rather a peculiar condition in this matter of distance from New Iberia is that both of these places are located in Iberia parish and while the farthest is 104 miles away from Now Iberia by water neither of those places is over twenty miles distant from New Iberia as the crow flies.

Blue Point is on the Southeast corner of Grand lake, in Iberia parish. The new camp at that point will be maintained at least five years. There are at least two years' operations at Buffalo Cove.

The timber of this company in put into the water by contract. The logs are stored at New Iberia as they are at Jeanerette, along the Bayou Teche. There is room for 2,000 logs; besides a harbor in the lower Atchafalaya river where 6,000 logs can be stored.

The Saw Mill at New Iberia.
At New Iberia 50,000 feet of lumber, 100,000 shingles and 25,000 lath are produced daily. The building in which the lumber, lath and shingles are manufactured is 40 by 250 feet in area and stands on the bank of the Bayou
Teche; it has an annex 40 by 60 feet. The mill is two stories in height and was built in 1892.

Five boilers in the saw mill provide power by which the saw mill and dry kiln are run. The heat is produced by two Dutch ovens fed automatically. The engine for the saw mill is a Filer & Stowell 20x30 and has been in use since 1892. It is a most satisfactory engine and has cost all told for repairs since it was put
in place just $6, which was spent for one set of crosshead brasses.

On the saw floor is one 9-foot band mill with Filer & Stowell twin engine feed.

Stock and Shipping at New Iberia.
The lumber goes from the mill to the sorting table, is sorted in all grades and put on a 4-wheel truck which runs about the yards on a 16-pound rail track with a gage of 2 feet 5-1/2 inches. Thirty of these trucks are utilized on the three miles of this railroad in the yards of the Iberia Cypress Company, Limited.

Over the twenty acres of piling ground in the Iberia yard the trucks run out on elevated trams through the yard and also on the ground underneath those trams, so that the lumber is piled above and below the trams.

Dry Kilns at New Iberia.
The dry kilns at New Iberia are located 218 feet east of the saw mill and consist of four rooms 22 by 90 feet each. The experience at New Iberia in the matter of drying is that it takes eight days for 1-inch, which results in only .02 percent checking. The process of drying at New Iberia is peculiar to this plant. Shingles and lath also are dried.

Factory Work at New Iberia.
The planing mill department at New Iberia, let it be understood, includes the planing mill, the sash, door and blind factory and the factory for the production of cisterns, porch columns etc. The area of the lower floor of the factory is 85 by 190 feet; the area of the upper floor is 40 by 190 feet. The planing mill at this place is all on the lower floor and is equipped with twenty-five machines, some of them engaged in cistern making, however, and the manufacture of porch columns.

The power to run the factory is from a 150-horsepower Filer & Stowell engine; steam is generated in two boilers of 100 horsepower each.

The manufacture of cisterns is an important specialty here and the product is very generally distributed over the southern half of the United States and into the Spanish-American country as well. The factory contains thirty machines.

Tracks and Sheds.
The Southern Pacific has two lines of track in the yards and there is a mill track at least half a mile long, so that accommodation may be had for loading all and as many orders as may be on hand at any time.
Both the dry kiln and planing mill have sheds that hold half a million feet and a separate shed holds 2,000,000 feet of lumber. The dressed lumber and molding shed holds 500,000 feet. There is shed room also for three carloads of glazed sash and all other products of the factory are provided with shed room until they can be conveniently shipped.

Fire Protection.
Water for fire protection at New Iberia is drawn from the Bayou Teche and the piping to the saw mill plant is four inches in size. There is a water tank 60 feet high that will hold 32,000 gallons of water and a fire company is organized among the employees. Something like 3,000 feet of hose is variously distributed; over forty-five hose pipes are in use; 260 barrels of water ready for use and 400 buckets on hand to be utilized.

Electric Lighting at New Iberia.
The dynamo at New Iberia has capacity for 350 lights, 16-candlepower each, and 25 arc lights. The engine that drives this dynamo is a high speed automatic of 30 horsepower.

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AT ALLEMANDS.

Des Allemands is what the Southern Pacific calls the little bayouside town. It is known by the United States government as Allemands. This town is located on the Southern Pacific railway and on the Bayou des Allemands, thirty-two miles from New Orleans, and has Western Union telegraph and Wells-Fargo express. At this place is situated the Des Allemands Lumber & Shingle Company, Limited, of which R. H. Downman is president and general manager, Sam R. Ely assistant general manager, E. G. Westmoreland vice president and manager and F. H. Lewis secretary and treasurer.

The length of life of the Des Allemands operation will not be so long as that of some of the other plants in the R. H. Downman possessions and yet with all the canal digging and waterway improvements going on it will be only a little while until the people of the Des Allemands plant may reach out to all the cypress territory of southeastern Louisiana for anything it may want in the way of timber, bringing it to the edge of the saw at Allemands. Even now enough timber is in its possession and in sight to run it for ten years.

Early History.
A mill at Des Allemands formerly was owned by Francis Martin, a small circular affair which had cut only about 1,000,000 feet of lumber, all told, which plant was bought in 1900 by R. H. Downman.

This plant was idle until March, 1901, when the Des Allemands Lumber & Shingle Company, Limited, was organized and thereupon the rebuilding of the mill was begun. The first idea was to make a shingle mill, but before much work had been done the saw mill idea dominated. The new mill was "turned over" in October of 1901, but began running regularly in January, 1902, as a circular mill.

In the latter part of 1902 the company put in a Clark Bros, band mill. When operations began there nothing but four or five small shacks and a store fifteen feet square were to be seen on that side of the bayou.

After the original purchase of timber some of it was exchanged with the Louisiana Lumber Company, Limited, for convenience. The Des Allemands people afterward purchased the Paradis tract of timber in St. Charles parish and in March, 1904, bought the Creole cypress mill, situated on the side of the bayou toward New Orleans, With this property went something like 100,000,000 feet of standing timber in LaFourche and St. John parishes. The timber operated by the Des Allemands Lumber & Shingle Company, Limited, lies in St. Charles and St. John parishes.

Timber Operations at Allemands.
The timber delivery for the Dos Allemands plant was contracted for with the Morgan City Timber Company in 1901. That contract was annulled in April, 1903, at which time the company bought its equipment. The company is operating a group of boats in Bayou Chevereiul, fifteen miles from Allemands, going up through Bay des Allemands, seven miles across Lake des Allemands, five miles through Bayou Chevereiul. There it has a canal a mile long and forty foot wide, at the end of which are two pullboats hauling out 35,000 feet of logs daily and one dredge, also working.

Two steamboats are in commission for towing and express service, of which the Pharr is the towboat. This boat is sixty-five feet over all in length, is of 16- foot beam and was built in 1897. The express boat is the Virginia, which has a length over all of thirty-six feet and a 6-1/2 foot beam.

At the Camp.
Two pullboats handle all the timber and both of them make a specialty of pulling full lengths. One dredge does all canal work. At this camp is a commissary for the use of the hundred men at work in the woods. Logs are stored in the Bayou Boeuf and the Bayou Chevereiul. There is unlimited room for storage. At the mill above the Southern Pacific bridge, at Des Allemands, is a boom which holds 1,500,000 feet of logs.

Saw Mill at Allemands.
The saw mill is located on the north side of the Southern Pacific track. The power is generated by four boilers of 150 horsepower, seventy-two inches in diameter by eighteen feet in length. Two small tubular boilers are provided for use while the others are being washed out. The engines consist of one 18x24 and one 14x20.
In this mill is a Clark Bros, band and a edger. The carriage is run with a shotgun 10-inch steam feed, and a Prescott steam set works is provided. There is a lath mill in the saw mill building, and a Hill drag saw which cuts the logs into the required lengths.

The Shingle Department at Allemands.
The shingle department at Allemands is northwest of the mill building and is contained in a building 40 by 60 feet in area. The shingle machinery consists of one Perkins double blocker and one Challoner hand machine. Offal from the saw mill is run through a mechanical hog and carried 220 feet north of the saw mill and dropped behind a sheet iron screen twenty-five feet in height, where it is burned.

Stock and Shipping at Allemands.
A nice arrangement is in vogue at Allemands for the handling of lumber, the buildings being located in a straight line in the order lumber should be carried from the saw to the final storage place, or for shipment. Lumber from the yards comes down in a transfer and goes on trucks and is pulled to the yards and to the kilns by mules. Six mules and thirty trucks do the work. The lumber at Allemands is piled down and up. A canal thirty feet wide runs through the yard east and west, dividing the yard from the mill property. This is a very wise provision against the spread of fire. The yard contains ten acres and can be made as large as it is deemed necessary, because the company owns 480 acres of mill site.

The lumber is stored along four alleys running north and south, a very complete picture of which is shown.

Dry Kilns at Allemands.
The dry kilns recently erected at Allemands are very high class. They were built to take the place of kilns destroyed by fire in January, 1905; they are of the steam variety. These kilns have four rooms, two rooms in each battery; the batteries are twenty-four feet apart. Each kiln room is 22 by 64 feet in size.

Two new boilers have been added recently, of 150 horsepower each, seventy-two inches in diameter and eighteen feet long, which will be used to furnish steam
for the dry kilns and to operate the planing mill as well; the planing mill having been operated before from the saw mill. The shavings from the planing mill go directly to these boilers.

The Planing Mill at Allemands.
To the west of the saw mill, about 215 feet, is situated the planing mill of the Allemands plant. The machinery consists of one surfacer, one matcher, one rip saw, one band resaw, one inside molder, one outside molder, one picket machine, one table rip saw, one Byrkitt lath machine, two cutoff saws and one hog, which grinds the refuse.

Handling the Lumber.
The planing mill dry shed is 40 by 150 feet, and in that shed is stored the dressed lumber, pickets, molding etc. There is room in this shed for 750,000 feet of lumber. Next to that are the sheds contiguous to the kilns and 200 feet away is another shed, capable of caring for 260,000 feet of lumber. Seventy-five feet farther on is another dry shed 200 by 40 feet in area, which will hold 1,500,000 feet of lumber. At Allemands is over a quarter of a mile of loading track.

The demand at Allemands for shingles is principally from Texas, Louisiana and the west; the upper grades of lumber go into the eastern and middle states.

Fire Protection.
A water tower sixty feet in height holds 20,000 gallons of water; in piping throughout the various portions of this plant is 5,110 feet—almost a mile. In commission are 1,950 feet of hose, 26 hose pipes, 72 barrels filled with water ready for use in the most appropriate places, 99 buckets also ready for immediate use. There are six tanks all told, including the one just mentioned, and on the property are located fifteen hose houses where the pipes are properly fitted up. These are located at convenient distances from all exposed places.

The Ship Yard at Allemands.
One of the appurtenances that was purchased from the Creole Cypress Company is the ship yard. It is a very complete affair, fitted with a fine machine shop; it has one set of steam ways capable of hauling a 150-foot boat and two small hand ways for launches, luggers etc.

The machine shop is run by a gasoline engine of 40 horsepower and contains a planer, edger, drill press etc.

Collateral Affairs.
The store at Allemands is very finely fitted up, has a cold storage underneath the building, buys ice by the carload etc. The company has also a commissary in the woods for the accommodation of its men.

The buildings at Allemands on the mill side of the river are all owned by the Des Allemands Lumber & Shingle Company, Limited; besides the store a hotel, office and sixty houses for the use of the employees of the company. On this side of the river is a school house, supported by the parish, which has thirty or forty pupils during the school year. There is also a little drug store and a mill physician. This place has been particularly free from accidents, either at the mill or in the woods.

The electric dynamo in use at Allemands was manufactured by the Northern Electrical Manufacturing Company and is located in the saw mill pump house. This dynamo runs six arc lights and 250 incandescent lamps. The dynamo is driven by an 8x12 high speed engine.

A private telephone line connects the manager’s house with the office and the depot, with three receivers.

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IN PERSONNEL.

So much was to be said about the plants of this institution in the small space devoted to text in this 40-page story that it was planned to devote as little space as possible to individuals. Yet inasmuch as the personality of one man affects all the affairs of these interests, and inasmuch as a story of this kind would be incomplete without a very pointed discussion of the antecedents and characteristics of that man and those other men who have helped to create this business, the LUMBERMAN will, in closing this story and under this general head, give the personal history of R. H. Downman and his managerial associates.

R. H. Downman.
Robert Henry Downman, president of the five companies and general manager of all the business of those companies, is one of the very few masters of detail that the writer has ever known who did not allow the minutiae of his work to weigh him down and put him in long straight furrows.

It is no exaggeration to say that Mr. Downman goes more explicitly into the innermost happenings of his business than does any other lumberman in the United States. He is a man of wonderful memory and seems to store away all the facts he gathers on his many trips through his possessions against the time when he might need them for reference. Ninety-five percent of the men and all of the foremen who work for the five companies know him personally. From stable boss to manager he knows each man, his value, his mental weight and the work that he essays to do.

Mr. Downman is a personal court of adjustment for claims and grievances inside and out of business; while most men with his responsibilities would act by proxy. He literally keeps open house—possibly an attribute of Virginia hospitality inherited from a long line of Virginia ancestors. He is as easy to see as the town pump in a country village. But by being swift in his conclusions and thus being able to say he will or he won’t on all propositions he does a personally conducted business—a rare accomplishment in these modern days.

Robert Henry Downman was born in Fauquier county, Virginia, February 27, 1860. The place of his birth was near Warrenton. About 1869 the family moved to Warrenton. Robert Henry attended school until he was nearly 15 years old.

Mr. Downman’s father was the county clerk of Fauquier county and Robert Henry was from 1874 to 1878 a clerk in his father’s office.

Mr. Downman was educated at the Agricultural and Mechanical college of Virginia, located at Blacksburg. After his school days he went back to Warrenton and was interested in the hardware, agricultural implement and lumber trades during 1879 and 1880.

Mr. Downman had an uncle at Bryan, Tex., who was in the retail drug business, and after his experience in Virginia he went to Texas and stayed with his uncle for about a year in the retail drug trade.

In 1881 R. H. Downman went to Waco, Tex., where he opened up a retail business in drugs. He sold that business in 1882 and went on a farm near Waco to do general work. He went with J. W. Castles & Co., of Waco, in the spring of 1883 as a clerk in the office, taking care of invoices and correspondence relative to orders. He stayed there until January 1, 1884. At that time J. W. Castles & Co. became Cameron, Castles & Story, wholesale groceries and drugs, and R. H. Downman was put in charge of the wholesale drug department. He stayed there until 1886, when the drug business was sold to Behrens & Castles, whereupon Mr. Downman went to represent Mr. Castles in that firm.

Mr. Downman married June 6, 1888, Miss Annie S. Cameron, daughter of the late William Cameron.

He stayed with Behrens & Castles until in February, 1889—at the solicitation of William Cameron—Mr. Downman went into the lumber firm of William Cameron & Co. as one of the working partners of that business, his part of the work being to look after the retail yards. Mr. Downman stayed there until the end of the term of that partnership, March 1, 1897. When that partnership was dissolved by mutual consent, in 1897, the firm continued under the name of William Cameron & Co., with William Cameron, R. H. Downman and W. W. Cameron the partners—the other junior partners retiring. This latter firm existed until the day of William Cameron’s death, February 6, 1899.

R. H. Downman was one of the executors of Mr. Cameron’s will together with his (William Cameron’s) wife and son, W. W. Cameron, and assisted in winding up the affairs of the estate. This resulted in a division of the estate under the terms of Mr. Cameron’s will. Mr. Downman in this division secured the Bowie Lumber Company, Limited, at Bowie; the stock that William Cameron owned in the Jeanerette Lumber & Shingle Company, Limited; stock in the Whitecastle Lumber & Shingle Company, and two retail lumber yards in San Antonio. This inheritance, however, brought only a modicum of what has since been added to the original in the six and a half years that have elapsed since the division.

Mr. Downman is today the owner of 90 percent of the stock of the Iberia Cypress Company, Limited, New Iberia, La.; the Bowie Lumber Company, Limited, Bowie, La.; the Des Allemands Lumber & Shingle Company, Limited, Allemands, La., and of 70 percent of the stock of the Whitecastle Lumber & Shingle Company, Limited, Whitecastle, La., and 60 percent of the stock of the Jeanerette Lumber & Shingle Company, Limited, at Jeanerette, La.

Mr. Downman’s properties in Texas and elsewhere are not made a part and parcel of the general estimate of his holdings in this article, but reference—in figures —is made only to his lumber possessions.

The William Cameron interests in cypress lumber began in the Whitecastle Lumber & Shingle Company, Limited, at Whitecastle, La., but their chief pride in the latter part of Mr. Cameron’s life was the building up of the plant at Bowie, of which Mr. Downman took active charge and which has prospered under his management in a wonderful way.

After getting Bowie in proper order Mr. Downman purchased the timber holdings of Francis Martin in La Fourche parish and acquired a mill at Allemands. This he bought November 5, 1900. The rebuilding of the plant of the Des Allemands Lumber & Shingle Company, Limited, was begun in June, 1901, and between that time and January 1, 1902, was rebuilt and put into shipshape order. December 26, 1900, Mr. Downman bought out the P. L. Renoudet Cypress Lumber Company, at New Iberia.

Mr. Downman moved to New Orleans October 1, 1900, and now occupies offices in rooms 1003-4-5-6 in the Hibernia Bank building, shown elsewhere.

Mr. Downman purchased the C. L. Hopkins tract of land of the Creole Cypress Company at Allemands, La., March 15, 1904. This plant has been abandoned.
Outside of his lumber business Mr. Downman owns large tracts of highly mineralized lands at Llano, Tex. It is considered a very valuable property, worth into the millions.

Besides his lumber stock and mining properties Mr. Downman owns stock in many other institutions which would not be of interest to lumber people to have mentioned.

Samuel R. Ely.
Samuel R. Ely, assistant general manager of the R. H. Downman plants and the gentleman next to Mr. Downman in the direction of all his lumber affairs, is a typical Texan, having been born at Galveston March 24, 1866.

Mr. Ely is of Virginia stock by the way of Missouri to Texas, and being a Texan is, as is natural for a southern man, a notable cosmopolite.

When young Ely was 4 years of age his family moved from Galveston to Huntsville, Tex., where he spent his boyhood. In Huntsville he gained a common school education and lived there until he was 17 years of age.

It was in the office of the International & Great Northern at Huntsville that Mr. Ely learned telegraphy. Ho was a railway agent at 18 at the station called Highlands, now Lamarque, on the International & Great Northern, the Galveston, Henderson & Houston and Missouri, Kansas & Texas railways. He was the joint agent at that place for the International & Great Northern and the Galveston, Henderson & Houston roads.

Mr. Ely stayed steadily at station agent work for fully ten years. In that time he was agent at Farmersville, Dangerville, Smithville, LaGrange, Hillsboro, Buffalo, Huntsville and McNeil, all in Texas.

On May 1, 1891, he was made commercial agent at Dallas, Tex., for the Missouri, Kansas & Texas road. Mr. Ely was transferred to Fort Worth, Tex., in the same capacity for the same road on October 1, 1892, and remained there until July 21, 1901.

In the meantime he was relief agent at Denison, previous to the Lad range employment.

Mr. Ely wont to work for R. H. Downman July 22, 1901, as traffic manager and remained in that position until May, 1904. He was then made assistant general manager of all the Downman lumber interests.

Frederick H. Lewis.
Frederick Henry Lewis can usually be found in the office of R. H. Downman at New Orleans. He has been associated with Mr. Downman for many years, Mr. Lewis is a Virginian by adoption, having been born near London, England, April 22, 1859; afterward coming to Virginia, before the civil war.

The elder Lewis had plantations in Pittsylvania county, near Danville, Va., and came to this country to look personally after his affairs.

Frederick Henry Lewis began his education in England before his first trip to the United States and after he had been some time in Virginia was returned to England to Knighton’s school, near Reading, in Oxfordshire, where he put in all told twelve years of solid study. He was graduated from that school when he was about 20 years old. That was in 1879, in which year he came back to Virginia. After young Lewis had been in Virginia a year his father died. After his father’s death he went into the banking house of W. S. Patton, Sons & Co., of Danville, Va., where he stayed until 1886, in which year he went to St. Louis, where he went into a wholesale mercantile house. He remained in St. Louis until 1889, when he went to work for the Texas & Pacific Coal Company, near Fort Worth.

He was there until 1897. He went with William Cameron & Co., at Waco, Tex., in February, 1889.

On the division of the Cameron estate Mr. Lewis went with R. H. Downman and is now officially connected with the various Downman mills as hereinbefore mentioned.

Mr. Lewis looks especially after the confidential affairs of Mr. Downman and after the financial affairs of the R. H. Downman interests in all the companies in which Mr. Downman is represented, in and out of lumber.

E. L. Hunter.
Elmer Lyons Hunter, the traffic manager of the R. H. Downman lumber interests, was bom in Houston, Ill., September 21, 1871. He lived in this town until 1890. Mr. Hunter was educated at Sparta, Ill., and when he was 18 years old went to work for a commission house in St. Louis, Mo.

After his experience in the commission house he went to work for the Shapleigh Hardware Company, of that city, as a bill clerk. He went from the Shapleigh Hardware Company to the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railway office and acted as stenographer for C. Haile, general freight agent of that railway. From there he went to the superintendent’s office of the American Express Company and from that place to the Williams Ferry Company’s office.

Following these St. Louis experiences he went to Galveston, Tex., as assistant ticket agent and clerk in the commercial agent’s office of the Missouri, Kansas &
Texas railway in that city.

Following his experience in Galveston Mr. Hunter came back to St. Louis and was employed in the office of the Southwestern Traffic Association, in that city.

Since and including 1895 Mr. Hunter has been with the Illinois Central; acted as claim agent for the Missouri, Kansas & Texas road at Dallas, and was commercial agent for the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railway at Fort Worth. In 1901 he went to Waco as commercial agent for the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railway company.

In November of 1902 Mr. Hunter went to Fort Worth as the live stock agent of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas road, a very important position in that section of the southwest in railroad circles. In May, 1904, Mr. Hunter came to New Orleans as traffic manager for the R. H. Downman cypress interests. Mr. Hunter, of course, has an office in the R. H. Downman headquarters on the tenth floor of the Hibernia Bank building, but he travels a great deal among the mills and holds altogether a very active and important position.

Jesse Wright McWilliams is the general auditor of the Downman interests in lumber and in other lines as well. His chief duty, however, and that which takes most of his time, is the task of auditing the accounts of the lumber end of Mr. Downman's business.

Mr. McWilliams was born in the longleaf pine district of eastern Texas in February, 1868. His parents moved to Waco in 1873, where he entered what was then Waco University, which is now the new Baylor College of Waco. He was at the University until February 1, 1884.

During 1883 and 1884 he attended Hill’s Business College during vacations. He
was graduated from the business college during the summer of 1884 and in November of that year went with a wholesale cigar and tobacco house in Waco as its bookkeeper.

In the spring of 1885 he went with a wholesale and retail stationery house of Waco as bookkeeper and clerk, where he remained until the spring of 1887.

Mr. McWilliams studied and taught penmanship during the spring and summer of 1887 and in the fall of that year went with another wholesale and retail stationery house in Waco, continuing with that house until the summer of 1888, when he went with the Cameron Roller Mills, at Waco, as bookkeeper.

Mr. McWilliams continued with this company until the fall of 1888, when he went with the American National bank, of Waco, of which William Cameron was at that time president. He continued with the bank as collection clerk and teller until the summer of 1890, when he went to Fort Worth as manager of the collection department of the Merchants National bank. He left the bank in 1892 and spent that year reading law. In 1893 he again went with William Cameron as grain clerk with the Cameron Mill & Elevator Company at Fort Worth, where he continued with the flour mill as bookkeeper and assistant manager until 1899. In that year he went with William Cameron & Co., now William Cameron & Co., Incorporated, wholesale manufacturers of lumber at Waco, Tex.

He was elected secretary of William Cameron & Co., Incorporated, in 1901, and was with that concern until the summer of 1902, when he resigned and went to Fort Worth again, taking charge of the business at that point. In 1904 he came to New Orleans with R. H. Downman.

J. F. Wigginton.
Joseph Fallon Wigginton is a living refutation of the theory that one has to spend two-thirds of his life in the lumber business to make a success of it. But he was brought up in the Cameron-Reddy-Downman school, to which he attributes a good measure of his success.

Mr. Wigginton was born May 1, 1870, in New Orleans and lived there until he came to Bowie, in 1897. He was a pupil in the public schools of New Orleans until he was 14 years of age.

He had done chiefly office business when in 1897 he came to Bowie, La., as bookkeeper for William Cameron & Co. and assistant to the late T. Gordon Reddy, at that time manager of the Cameron interests at Bowie.

Mr. Wigginton has remained constantly at Bowie since that time. In 1901 he was made secretary and treasurer of the Bowie Lumber Company, Limited. This was after Mr. Reddy untimely death in January, 1901. At that time he was made manager by R. H. Downman and has held that position in connection with his other executive work ever since.

Mr. Wigginton has taken an active interest in many of the parish affairs. He is postmaster of Bowie and is a member of the LaFourche parish school board by the appointment of Governor Blanchard, August 11, 1904.

H. B. Hewes.
Harry Bartram Hewes, vice president and treasurer of the Jeanerette Lumber & Shingle Company, Limited, at Jeanerette, La., is from old Pennsylvania Quaker stock. He is a direct descendant of the Joseph Hewes who signed, with other patriots, the Declaration of Independence. Mr. Hewes, father came from West Chester, Pa., to Texas in 1853. Harry Bartram Hewes was born at Houston, June 23, 1866.

Mr. Hewes was educated in the public schools of Houston and at Shenandoah, Iowa, at which educational center he took a degree in higher mathematics, and now in his middle life he is distinctively a mathematician; his exactness in business affairs would proclaim that fact; his methodical course in everyday life would strengthen that impression.

From a personal acquaintance with Mr. Hewes covering a decade the writer is of the impression that nothing with him "just happens." Everything he does seems to be carefully thought out and weighed well before being attempted. Ho is a conservative man. For instance, he did not just happen to fall into the lumber business, but wont into it deliberately. When ho came out of school he wont into the commission business, but he did not make a very long try at that before he saw there was no future to it and not a very great deal of present. He wished to do something substantial and, being well known in Houston as a bright young man of good family, he had no difficulty in approaching the late M. T. Jones on the subject of the lumber business.

He did not go to Mr. Jones for an opinion, really, but simply dropped in and announced that he was going into the lumber business and was looking for something to do, which Mr. Jones undoubtedly needed done and at which he desired a chance, He had come to the lumber determination by himself and simply asked Mr. Jones to stand and deliver to him an opportunity; Mr. Jones did so at once and without argument. Mr. Hewes paid no attention to the statements Mr. Jones had to make about the difficulties of the business, but went to work in the yards of the M. T. Jones Lumber Company, at Houston, worked up through all the lines of the trade, learned practical bookkeeping and in a short time became bookkeeper for the Jones people.

When Mr. Milmo, of Milmo, Stokoe & Co., of Jeanerette, La., was in Houston looking for a young man to come out to that thriving young town on the Southern Pacific railway in 1887 a friend of Harry Hewes told Mr. Stokoe that Hewes was the man that he (Stokoe) was looking for, and so young Hewes was engaged as bookkeeper for Milmo, Stokoe & Co. and has been domiciled in Jeanerette ever since in some capacity with that firm and its successors.

In November, 1887, Mr. Hewes was made a one-sixth partner in the business of Milmo & Stokoe and the concern's name was made Milmo, Stokoe & Co.

The Jeanerette Lumber & Shingle Company, Limited, was organized in September, 1894, and Mr. Hewes was made vice president and treasurer of that company, a position he still holds. Besides filling that position he is general manager of the business.

A. C. Johns.
Arthur Clifford Johns, manager of the Whitecastle Lumber & Shingle Company, Limited, at Whitecastle, La., is the dean in the saw mill managerial force of the Downman interests as regards his age and the length of time he has been interested in lumber. Mr. Johns, however, is the last one of the five managers to become associated with the business in Louisiana. He, however, has been associated with Mr. Downman in business for many years.

Mr. Johns was born June 23, 1853, in St. Charles, Mo., and his primary education was in the town school of St. Charles; besides that he was at Westminster, Mass., for two years.

In the latter part of 1872 Mr. Johns went to work in the wholesale grocery business and stayed in that line of trade until 1883, when he went to San Antonio, Tex., and started in the lumber business. The first concern of which he was a member was Gauss & Johns, a retail lumber business at San Antonio, situated on South Flora street, that city, at which place he was continuously in business until 1891, in which year he bought out his partner, Mr. Gauss, and ran that business until 1894.

In 1894 he sold the business to William Cameron & Co. In 1899, when R. H. Downman acquired his interest in the Cameron properties, after the death of William Cameron, Mr. Johns' yard was a part of the acquisition. After Mr. Downman became associated with the business Mr. Johns had a working interest in the business at once and up to June, 1904, when the business was sold by Mr. Downman, and he came to Whitecastle with his family to cast his lot for the crowning event of his lumber career, the management of the business at Whitecastle.

Mr. Johns is a man of high social qualities and strict attention to well thought out and laid down lines of business integrity.

Under Mr. Johns’ management, with the added facilities that have come to the Whitecastle plant, that one of the first institutions to popularize cypress lumber will still be found working at the old stand many years.

G. W. Dallas.
George W. Dallas, manager of the Iberia Cypress Company, Limited, at New Iberia, La., is a native of that state, having been born at Plaquemine, La., in September, 1861.

He is a power politically and socially in his community. He is a man of great personal popularity.

Mr. Dallas is a practical man in every sense and has had a prominent career in the lumber business in Louisiana of which he may well be proud.

Mr. Dallas was raised in New Orleans. He entered mercantile business at the age of 14 years. He stayed in mercantile lines for three years and at the age of 17 went to New Iberia; cutting loose from the city and all of its attractions and in fact leaving a city position on the mere chance that there was something better for him in the country places.

There was no particular reason why he should have gone to New Iberia more than to any other well known point in the state, but it was out there in the open air and where there was some promise for the future that gave to young Dallas a choice and he rolled up his sleeves and went to work wheeling wood at a saw mill.

He was in the saw mill of J. Gall at New Iberia two years and at the age of 19 went into the timber business with G. W. Broughton, his stepfather, and was with Mr. Broughton associated in business until he was 21 years old. At the age of 21 he went back into the mill business. Following that he spent a year and a half in Florida.

Mr. Dallas has been identified with the saw mill business since 1879. He has filled positions of mill contractor, filer and sawyer, sold lumber on commission and has done a considerable proportion of all of it.

Mr. Dallas has been identified with the saw milling proposition at the present mill site of the Iberia Cypress Company, Limited, since 1882.

E. G. Westmoreland.
Erdley Graham Westmoreland is also of the Cameron-Reddy-Downman school of cypress lumbermen, and one might expect him to do as he did do—get his education swiftly.

Mr. Westmoreland has been nearly all his lumber life with the Cameron and Downman interests in cypress. He has been in the business nearly all the time since 1893 and has had a remarkably successful career, as is evidenced by his achievements.

Mr. Westmoreland was born in Middlesex, England, just outside of London. He attended a private school until 13 years of age and then went to the London public schools.

His first business experience was in that most thorough and practical school of insurance business as it is done "at Lloyds." After serving a very thorough apprenticeship at Lloyds Mr. Westmoreland, after the manner of the conquering Englishman, concluded to come to the English part of America to make his fortune.

He immigrated to Canada in 1892 and went into the cattle country—Calgary, N. W. T. He spent 1892 and 1893 there and then, having established relations of intimacy by letter with some old friends, he concluded that was not the country for him and came on to Pensacola, Fla., where he was associated as clerk and wharfman with the Southern States Land & Timber Company, that experience being from 1893 to 1895.

In 1897 Mr. Westmoreland went to Bowie, La., to gain a practical knowledge of the manufacturing end of the cypress business. He did this after having thoroughly investigated the business and believing that at that point he could best learn the business so he could make his very decided and deeply aggressive mark in the world.

He became assistant in the office and shipping clerk and yard foreman until Mr. Reddy’s death, which occurred in. 1901. In May of 1901 the Des Allemands Lumber & Shingle Company, Limited, was started at Allemands, La., and Mr. Downman made Mr. Westmoreland vice president and manager of the company.

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IN CONCLUSION.

One is chiefly impressed in investigating the R. H. Downman cypress interests with the fact that no nicer, cleaner business exists in any line of the commercial world; and that the tie that binds is the loyalty of its depart mental heads.

The various managers of the Downman cypress interests seem to have the particular sort of grasp of their individual departments which Mr. Downman assumes and executes for the entire system of mills; and among the employees of the various departments of this business is noticed a general and healthy emulation which accomplishes business results.

This business is first and last a personally conducted affair and one from which many valuable lessons may be drawn by those who have done themselves the great pleasure of visiting the various mills referred to herein or who have done the next best thing—read the text of this article and noted the illustrations—from the beginning to this—the end.

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Text and images were digitized and proofread from the original source documents by Murry Hammond. Contact Murry for all corrections and contributions of new material.