A GRAPHIC STORY OF THE FROST-TRIGG INTERESTS
IN LOUISIANA, ARKANSAS AND TEXAS
THE
RED RIVER LUMBER COMPANY
NOBLE LUMBER CO., INC.
UNION SAW MILL CO.
DE SOTO LAND & LUMBER CO.
BLACK LAKE LUMBER CO.
STAR & CRESCENT LUMBER CO.

The story of the Frost-Trigg lumber interests which follows, while similar in some sense to those of other great milling interests that have been illustrated in these columns, is so different in many ways that it must be set down here, in the first and opening sentence, that no man of lumber affairs in this country can afford to miss a single line of this text from the very beginning to the very end. This might be a trite and commonplace statement if by that statement some specific and peculiar thing were not meant. But there is a meaning in it and it shall not appear between the lines. The meaning shall be done in printer’s ink, with cold type; for no such statement ever before appeared in connection with an article of this character in the AMERICAN LUMBERMAN -- in the article itself.

Let us approach the central theme thread of the story which will follow and make an assertion about the character of it in a sort of progressive sense, so that the reader will grasp the absolute meaning of this advice.

The vertebrae -- in fact, all the bones and supporting muscles of the body of any great business -- is expressed in two words -- perfect organization. The next desirable thing is the perpetuity of that organization, not only throughout the lives of those who perfected it but the evident probability that the spirit of it will live beyond the lives of those men who founded and perfected that organization.

Now this business devoted to the manufacture and distribution of yellow pine lumber -- known as the Frost-Trigg interests -- has accomplished that much to be desired stability, a stability in the present guaranteed by the nature of it to extend throughout many generations. Our text is contained in that assertion.

Every facility has been granted for gathering information concerning the policy of the business which is to be discussed, and is it not worth the while of any lumberman to peruse this article for the space of an hour just to find out upon what foundation of fact is based that remarkable conclusion?

If the reader will answer this question in the affirmative by a determination to comply with the request to read all of this article, from beginning to end, he will learn how a cooperative business has been built up, without being called that; how it has been individually managed, and yet has not been ruled by that individualism which is autocratic or has been made to succeed by grinding its employees into servitude.

Will it not be worth while to know how that has been accomplished?

Having certainly said enough, it is hoped, to induce the reader to proceed to the end, missing no paragraph, he will be rewarded for his intention to comply with our request by being told the whole nub of the matter, right here, in the next paragraph, and put on his honor for the rest of his task.

The Frost-Trigg interests have become that solid organization which insures longevity through many generations yet to come, because they have held out the inducement to the humblest worker in the ranks that he may participate in the profits of the organization when he shows ability to do better things -- and always has this management kept faith with the employee. The sergeants and color-bearers and lieutenants and captains and divisional officers of these interests have been recruited from the Frost-Trigg ‘‘rank and file." They have selected their stockholders from among those who have made the several manufacturing companies possible and who have "been faithful over a few things, " and today a greater number of people who have grown up with these interests -- 60 percent of those people whose portraits appear herewith -- possess more valuable stocks in these institutions than are possessed by employees of any similar line of business in the United States; and that spells harmony and stability and promises that perpetuity for these institutions which we claim.

This article is to tell of the rise and progress of the Red River Lumber Company, of Frostville, Ark.; the Noble Lumber Company, of Noble, La.; the Union Saw Mill Company, of Huttig, Ark.; the De Soto Land & Lumber Company, of Mansfield, La.; the Black Lake Lumber Company, of Campti, La.; the Star & Crescent Lumber Company, of Shreveport, La.; and of the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company, of St. Louis, Mo., and Shreveport, La. -- the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company first because it knits them all together and permits us to give a name to the great group of saw milling interests.

The six interests possess not less than 2,600,000,000 feet of standing pine timber, which if it could be reduced to lumber today, at prevailing values, would be worth not a penny less than fifty-two million five hundred thousand dollars in cash, f. o. b. the various milling points. These timber land holdings are confined to the states of Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas, and a map has been prepared showing the location of the five active milling interests referred to in this text and its accompanying illustrations.

The total number of employees of the five active milling institutions, plus that of the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company, is about 1,600 -- and not less than 4,000 people are dependent upon these operations for a living.

We tell the story with the selling end next; sketches of the executive people and administrative cabinet; the Frost banking interests; history and description of the six timber possessing institutions, next in the order of their creation, and follow all this with a brief sketch of each man in the service holding a position of trust of sufficient importance to warrant that distinction.

Never has a purely lumber manufacturing interest been illustrated with as many personal individual portraits; and this is in keeping with the policy of the interests -- to exploit those who make this great business possible.

The other illustrations tell their own story, and from the remarkable log-pond frontispiece used as background for the title page, to the end, each is a necessary link in the composite picture which this text exploits.

The Frost-Trigg Lumber Company, of St. Louis, Mo., and of Shreveport. La., is the band of commercial interests which helps to bind these institutions into a harmonious and profitable whole.

The name serves for a text, and before getting any further than just the introduction above we must explain just the status of this institution.

The Frost-Trigg Lumber Company does not command -- it serves. It enables us to call this article an exploitation of the Frost-Trigg interests and, that being true, an exploitation of the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company must stand next to the introduction of this article.

Many great milling interests of the south are knitted together by a selling agency end, located in some northern of semi-northern city, serving as not only the selling end of the business but in a sense as a holding company, a sort of clarifying institution, where the syrup of endeavor finally crystallizes into the sugar of profit.

Not so with the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company, of St. Louis, Mo., and Shreveport, La., for it is run with the idea of handling as much of the product of the five mills which are in active operation as it possibly can, with the least amount of profit to itself, in order that the milling propositions may make the greatest amount of money.

The Frost-Trigg Lumber Company directs nothing but its own affairs, and the five active sawmilling propositions sell to it, or not, as their advantage may seem to indicate.

This places the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company in a unique position.

The incorporators of the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company were E. W. Frost, R. L. Trigg, H. J. Allen, C. D. Johnson, J. M. Park, J. P. Towery, Milton Winham, E. A. Frost and N. P. Sanderson, who were also the original stockholders. The company was incorporated in Missouri February 18, 1897, as the result of a consolidation of the R. L. Trigg Lumber Company, of St. Louis, Mo., and the E. W. Frost Lumber Company, of Texarkana, Ark.

The first officers were: E. W. Frost, president; R. L. Trigg, vice president; J. M. Park, secretary and treasurer, and C. D. Johnson, general manager. In 1899 R. L. Trigg withdrew from the company and at the following annual meeting W. D. Wadley was elected vice president.

At the annual meeting of 1901 Mr. Johnson was made vice president and general manager and J. P. Towery secretary and treasurer. During the same year Mr. Towery withdrew from the company and Frank Chester was appointed secretary and treasurer and afterwards elected to serve in that dual capacity.

The Shreveport office was opened the first week in January, 1903.

During 1904 Frank Chester withdrew from the company and A. J. Molt was appointed acting secretary.

The officers of the company since 1905 have been: E. W. Frost, president; C. D. Johnson, vice president and general manager; A. J. Molt, secretary, and H. W. Wagon, treasurer.

The first business of the company was conducted in one room in the Oriel building, St. Louis, in a personal way by C. D. Johnson, After the formal organization and incorporation of the company when the business began to be conducted on broader lines it was found necessary to have more apace, and two large rooms were rented on the third floor of the Equitable building. This was in 1897.

In the course of a few years the timber department was added and, the growth of the business requiring more space, the office was removed to a suite of four rooms on the ninth floor of the Lincoln Trust building. This was in August, 1899.

Requiring still larger quarters on account of the increase of the business of the company, it returned to more commodious rooms on the seventh floor of the Equitable building, and there, in five well lighted rooms, fitted with an interior system of telephones and other modern conveniences, the business of the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company is at the present time administered.

The directors are E. W. Frost, E. A. Frost, C. D. Johnson, Milton Winham and H. W. Wagon. C. D. Johnson is general manager, John F. Schnieders eneral sales agent, H. R. Asman manager timber and specials department, H. W. Wagon auditor, and W. N. Bloomfield traffic manager.

C. M. Hanger, of Morocco, Ind., travels in northern Illinois, northern Indiana and southern Michigan; J. L. Klemeyer, of Effingham, Ill., travels in southern Illinois and eastern Iowa; E. A. McKenzie, of Sullivan, Ill., travel in central Illinois and Wisconsin; W. A. Rider, of Indianapolis, Ind., travels in southern and central Indiana and Ohio; W. H. Loomis, of St. Louis, Mo., travels in northern Missouri, Iowa, southern Minnesota and eastern Kansas.

The business of the Mississippi valley, from the middle of north Missouri west into eastern Kansas and Nebraska, north to the great lakes and east to the Atlantic coast, is naturally handled through the St. Louis office.

The Shreveport office of the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company -- which is situated in the First National Bank building in that city, in commodious rooms on the fourth floor -- was opened for the better taking care of the growing trade of the southwestern states, that of Texas, Oklahoma, Indian Territory and southwestern Missouri, New Mexico and southern Kansas.

It was then thought, and since experienced, by the management of this institution that the business could best be looked after in this way and the results have been extremely satisfactory, as the southwest is developing more rapidly than any other portion of the United States and is consuming immense quantities of lumber.

E. A. Frost is the active manager of the Shreveport end of the business, assisted by R. D. Collins. R. A. Myer, for many years in the employ of the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company, is general sales agent; C. H. Hesser, who lives at Dennison, Tex., travels in north Texas and the Indian Territory; D. D. Fairchild, Jr., with residence in Dallas, Tex., is the Texas representative; J. G. Wells, with residence in Aurora, Mo., travels in the Missouri territory, and W. C. Lawson, of Dallas, Tex., has recently been hired to take charge of Oklahoma territory. F. L. Wisdom is the head bookkeeper of the Shreveport end of the business and is auditor. L. A. Paulk is the assistant bookkeeper.

In this commercial army of the Frost-Trigg interests there are three commanders-in-chief, each outranking the others in many things so that the capabilities of all three added together make up the sum total of that executive foresight which has made every department of this vast business a success.

One, the eldest, is standing just a little aside in these days, but in full view of the battle line; is semi-retired and yet right at hand, ready on call, and at all times ready to step behind any apparently weakening place in the fight. That is E. W. Frost of Texarkana.

One of these commanders-in-chief is the lookout-chief of the signal corps in market conditions; looking ahead into the requirements of the grand divisions of demand, prophesying by certain mathematical theorems the things that are to occur before they happen, in order that all the mills now active in the business may fashion their products to fit the public taste and do it at such prices that their finished work will be profitable. In other -- and in fact in all departments of all the making and selling of lumber -- he is likewise expert, having come up from the "awkward squad" to a full knowledge of business tactics, through all lines of endeavor known to lumber manufacture and the disposition of the same. That is C. D. Johnson, of St. Louis.

The other is commander-in-chief of four-fifths of the manufacturing army in the field. He is going all the while from brigade to brigade, at all times his own courier of inquiry and observation, always looking after that most important point in any battle line "the weakest," be it of the commercial world or the. war of nations. He it is whose name most frequently appears at the head of the individual lists of company officials. He it is that is always looking after the recruiting office, seeing that deserved promotions are not overlooked, consulting with everyone from the drill masters to the captain of companies. He it is, as Kipling’s Mulvaney would put it, who has upon him at all times "the fog av fi’tin’." This is E. A. Frost, of Shreveport.

If any two of these commanders-in-chief should for any reason take himself out of active service the one remaining might easily assume the duties of all three, and in that one thing more than any other are the Frost-Trigg interests strong and deserving of their unapproachable credit in the financial world.

A short discussion of the individual history of the men who compose this triumvirate will throw much light upon the reason for their success.

Enoch W. Frost.
Enoch W. Frost, of Texarkana, Ark., is a conservative man who is enterprising and successful. It is an exploded theory that the conservative spirit lacks enterprise. Prudence brings success if tempered with clear thinking, and it is these attributes, mingled with industry, which have helped E. W. Frost to an unassailable position in the commercial world of the southwest.

E. W. Frost was born at Eldorado, Union county, Arkansas, January 14, 1848. The head of the Frost family migrated from Jackson, Tenn., to Arkansas in 1844. The family was of Scotch-Irish descent. Mr. Frost was educated in the county of his birth. The family moved to a point near Texarkana, in Lafayette (now Miller) county, Arkansas, in 1859. As a boy he worked on the plantation with his brothers and gained all the advantage which hard work in youth gives to the grown man.

Mr. Frost made his entry into the lumber business in 1881. In that year he accepted an opportunity to buy a little portable mill located about two and one-half miles from Texarkana. Interested with him in this proposition was William T. Ferguson, now a prominent lumberman of St. Louis.

It is a notable fact that the operation was a successful one, as has been every other enterprise of this conservative, enterprising man.

Never but once in his history has E. W. Frost failed to pay his employees on pay day. That one time rsulted from the robbery of the train which carried the money for the Frost payroll.

Messrs. Frost and Ferguson came out into the open with their milling operations at a point on the St. Louis Southwestern railway known as Milton’s Switch.

In 1883 Mr. Frost opened up an operation at Genoa, Miller county, Arkansas, under the firm name of E. W. Frost & Co. Four years later Mr. Frost and his partners wore foremost in the organization of the Bodcaw Lumber Company, at Stamps, Ark. This interest he sold in 1889 and the following year he bought a controlling interest in the Red River Lumber Company, situated near what was then New Lewisville and is now Lewisville, Ark. This institution was the Red River Lumber Company, yet in operation at Frostville.

One of Mr. Frost’s most successful ventures was in the organization of the Lufkin Land & Lumber Company, which occurred in 1899.

Mr. Frost is still president of the Red River Lumber Company and looks personally after its general affairs. In the last few years he has been delegating to younger but no more virile men much of the active detail. Of late years he has been most actively interested in the banking business at Texarkana. He was first vice president of the State Bank of Texarkana, now the State National bank, and became its president in 1904, which position he held for two years, when he was succeeded in that office by his son, E. A. Frost. He was formerly president of the State Savings & Trust Company, of Texarkana, of which E. A. Frost is now president.

E. W. Frost is a tall, angular, slenderly built man, who shows in every appearance his direct descent from Scotch-Irish ancestry. He is courteous and affable though not voluble. To one who has known him for two decades he has always remained the same, except possibly to grow a trifle younger, each year more brisk and ambitious in his associations with men.

His conservatism is not a pose. He asks one to wait until the day after tomorrow for his decision, but makes you know that it is necessary and leaves one wondering why he had not thought of that himself.

Edwin A. Frost.
Edwin A. Frost, the active, forceful head of four-fifths of the manufacturing business of the Frost-Trigg interests, is one of the best known types of the southern business man living in the southwest. In his temperament are mingled the old and the new -- the courtesy of the cavalier days and the directness of the modern business man blended into one. He is unobtrusive, but his unobtrusiveness is due to Mb habit of considering well every condition before giving expression to an opinion that could be viewed lightly. His is a broad life -- for his family first, for his country next, for himself last.

E. A. Frost is the son of E. W. Frost, of Texarkana, and was born in Miller county, Arkansas, October 25, 1869. In this comparatively new country he lived until he was 15 years old, attending a country school until he was 14 years old, and in the summer time working on the farm. During his fourteenth and sixteenth years he went to school at College Hill, Columbia county, Arkansas, where he prepared himself for college.

When E. W. Frost became interested in the Bodcaw Lumber Company young Edwin, eager to work, was put to work trucking lumber at "six bits" a day. A year of this work convinced him that if he wished to reach the top of the ladder about the foot of which he had been industriously shoving lumber "dollies" his chances of a sure footed climb would be much greater if he should begin where he left off and prosecute his education before he took any more degrees in lumbering.

E. W. Frost, senior; had anticipated that happening and encouraged his son to enter the Southwestern Baptist University; at Jackson, Tenn. Young Frost began his college career in 1887 and in 1890 was accorded the degree of bachelor of philosophy. After he left the university he took a course at Draughon’s Business College, of Texarkana, and the day after his graduation at that school became bookkeeper for C. T. Crowell, of Texarkana, who was interested in a partnership known then as the Black Lake Lumber Company, with a mill at Dubberly, La., a small settlement on the Vicksburg, Shreveport & Pacific railway thirty miles east of Shreveport.

This position he resigned at the end of nine months and became bookkeeper for the Red River Lumber Company, and in less than a year was promoted to the position of shipping clerk. He ultimately became manager of the company, went with it on its removal to Frostville, Ark., left that active management and became the active spirit in the organization of the Lufkin Land & Lumber Company, remaining with it until the company was sold in 1905.

In November, 1902, Mr. Frost was elected secretary, treasurer and manager of the Noble Lumber Company, at Noble, La., and was elected president of that company in March, 1906.

Mr. Frost was active in the formation of the Union Saw Mill Company, at Huttig, Ark., was one of the originators of the De Soto Land & Lumber Company, at Mansfield, La., and in January, 1903, opened an office of the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company at Shreveport, La:, to handle the business of that concern in the southwest.

E. A. Frost is president of the State National bank at Texarkana, Ark.; the State Savings & Trust Company, of Texarkana, Ark.; the Lufkin National bank, Lufkin, Tex.; the Noble Lumber Company, Noble, La.; the De Soto Land & Lumber Company, Mansfield, La.; the Mansfield Railway & Transportation Company, Mansfield, La.; the Black Lake Lumber Company, Shreveport, La. He is vice president, director and one of the three members of the voting trust of the Union Saw Mill Company, of Huttig, Ark.; a director and general manager of the Shreveport office of the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company, and a director in the Carter-Kelley Lumber Company, of Manning, Tex.; the Red River Lumber Company, of Frostville, Ark., and the Bank of De Soto, at Manfield, La., all these being his various and sundry marks of business distinction.

Clarence D. Johnson
Clarence D. Johnson, of St. Louis, Mo., vice president and general manager of the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company and president of the Union Saw Mill Company, of Huttig, Ark., is one of the most successful men connected with the yellow pine industry. As a master of market conditions in the present, and of those conditions in the future, he is without doubt first among all those who have sought to win distinction in that branch of commercial effort the distribution of lumber.

As an organizer and one to assemble men for the purpose of accomplishing great business transactions there is no stronger personage among the lumbermen of the south and southwest.

C. D. Johnson is an Englishman by descent, a New Yorker by birth and a citizen of the great southwest by adoption and characteristics. He was born at Catos, Steuben county, New York, in 1866. He lived in New York state until he was 12 years old, then with his parents moved to western Kansas in 1877. His schooling was finished in Lamed, Kan. His parents moved to Kansas City, Kan., in 1885, and yet reside in that place, from which city the subject of this sketch, at the age of 19, went to New Orleans to seek his fortune.

At first he was a collector. From that he went to work for John Newton, of Chopin, La., beginning his saw mill work by running a trimmer in the mill. He did a little of everything there was to do in saw mill operations and planing mill work until 1887. After 1887 he sawed logs in the woods for Sam Allen, down in the Trinity country; worked for A. W. Morris at Barnum, Tex., and became foreman of the Morris yard and shipping clerk.

In 1889 Mr. Johnson returned to Kansas City; after that he worked for a short time for the South Branch Lumber Company, in Chicago, and in the yard of W. J. Young & Co., of Clinton, Iowa, always looking for "something better." Finally determining that what he sought was in yellow pine manufacture he went to work in a pinning mill at New Lewisville, Ark., and remained at New Lewisville until the business of the company where he worked came into the hands of R. L. Trigg.

Mr. Johnson came to St. Louis in 1894, where the R. L. Trigg Lumber Company was formed, which afterwards became the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company, which was incorporated in February, 1897.

He is a stockholder in practically all of the Frost-Trigg interests and a director in many of them. He was the founder of the Union Saw Mill Company, which is treated in detail elsewhere in this article, and since its inception has been its most active leader.

There is to these interests an administrative cabinet which acts together or separately, as occasion may demand. Be it significant or not, this cabinet is composed of nine men, a talismanic number in this country since the year 1892.

The gentlemen referred to are H. H. Wheless, F. T. Whited, George S. Prestridge, Milton Winham, A. J. Peavy, George A. Kelley, R. D. Collins, Arthur W. Corkins and Arthur Dean.

Possibly no one has ever before called these men a cabinet; they are that, however, in such a broad sense of the word that they are even more than that. Each has executive duties, personal businesses of his own, outside of these interests, and each is as all around a man as are those who compose the Administrative Triumvirate.

It is doubtful if there is a phase of yellow pine saw milling from "tree to trade" which is not comprehended by these nine gentlemen, sketches of whom follow herewith.

George S. Prestridge
G. S. Prestridge, treasurer and general manager of the Black Lake Lumber Company, Campti, La., is a soldier of southwestern commercial affairs in lumber who was content to Jive for many years in the ranks and on the firing line of effort, without promotion, knowing that all the work he was doing was but fitting him for that reward of official rank which comes always to those who survive the fight.

Mr. Prestridge is very close to the general management of all the lumber interests of the Frosts, and a trusted lieutenant who is on occasions commander-in-chief.

George S. Prestridge was born in De Soto parish, Louisiana, October 25, 1860. In his early life his parents moved to Lafayette, Ark., to what was known in those days as Sulphur Forks, eighteen miles south of Texarkana. In 1878 his uncle took him to Calhoun county, Arkansas, to a little town of the name of Hampton, and he received his education in that town.

In 1881 we find Mr. Prestridge a farmer in Miller county, Arkansas. Barring a little time spent at a saw mill near Texarkana, Mr. Prestridge remained a farmer until 1889. In that year he moved to Genoa, Ark., and there engaged in the logging business for Frost & Ferguson. With the Frost interests he went to New Lewisville, Ark., in 1891, for the Red River Lumber Company, and in 1893 went with that institution to Frostville, Ark.

In 1899 Mr. Prestridge moved to Lufkin, Tex., where the Frost interests began the business of the Lufkin Land & Lumber Company.

Mr. Prestridge assisted in the building of the saw mill and also in the building of the Texas & Louisiana railroad, of which later he was made vice president and general superintendent.

In those days he was also a director in the Lufkin Land & Lumber Company and he is now a director in the Lufkin National bank; director in the Lufkin Ice Company; vice president and a director in the Lufkin Foundry & Machine Company; director in the Union Saw Mill Company; director in the Campti State bank; director in the Black Lake Lumber Company and second vice president of and director in the newly organized Star & Crescent Lumber Company.

F. T. Whited.
F. T. Whited, president of the Whited & Wheless Company, Limited, of Alden Bridge, La., was born in Terre Haute, Ind., in 1860, and with his parents moved to New Orleans, La., in the spring of 1865.

Mr. Whited’s father, Samuel Whited, had been a northern soldier, was a member of an Indiana regiment and, while fighting ns his conscience dictated, learned to love the country he fought and immediately after being mustered out canto to Louisiana for a permanent home.

The Whited family lived in New Orleans during 1865, 1866 and a portion of 1867 and then moved to Ouachita parish, Louisiana, and settled near Monroe, which has since remained the headquarters and home place of the Whited family.

Samuel Whited became a planter near Monroe and there his son, F. T. Whited -- the subject of this sketch -- spent his youth until he was sent north to school. He spent four years in the city schools of Indianapolis, Ind., remaining there until 1878.

He quit the high school at Indianapolis when he was 18 years old, came back to Louisiana in 1879 and became station agent at Gordon, La., on the line of the Vicksburg, Shreveport & Pacific railroad, where he remained until 1882. He had previously married in Ouachita parish, in 1881. After leaving the railroad he spent his time on a plantation near Gordon and was interested in a mercantile business at Gordon.

In 1887 Mr. Whited went to Shreveport, La., where he assisted in establishing the Consolidated Ice Company in association with F. G. Hudson, E. Fudicker, Edward Ball and others. Mr. Whited was the assistant manager of that company and was associated with the company in a managerial capacity or as a stockholder until 1889, in which year he and H. H. Wheless formed a partnership and went into the retail lumber business in Shreveport, La., in a modest way, opening a yard near the old Houston, East Sc West Texas railroad freight depot. They ultimately established there a planing mill and following that finally owned two different small mills during the next two or three years.

From the retail lumber business it was an easy transition into the shipping of lumber at wholesale, and from that to saw milling on a broader plane.

The Whited & Wheless Company, Limited, was incorporated in 1894, built a mill at Alden Bridge, La., which is still in operation, and in August of 1895 Mr. Whited with his family removed to that place, which is still his home.

Mr. Whited is president of Whited Wheless, Limited; vice president of the Black Lake Lumber Company; treasurer of the Star & Crescent Lumber Company; a director in the Continental Bank & Trust Company, of Shreveport; director in the Shreveport Creosoting Company and one of its organizers; looks personally after his cotton plantation of 1,200 acres situated in Ouachita parish, near Monroe; is interested in the Consolidated Ice Company, of Monroe, La., and owns a 10,000-acre cattle ranch ten miles east of Sweetwater on the Texas & Pacific railroad, in Fisher county, Texas.

H. H. Wheless.
H. H. Wheless, of Alden Bridge, La., is and has been for over a decade one of the yellow pine stalwarts of the southwest. He is careful, conservative and yet progressive in his business; a convincing man in matters which meet his interest and to which he may have given investigation, and a man who has taken his position in the business world by slow and sure steps -- always forward -- never backward.

Mr. Wheless is easily the dean of the administrative cabinet and his advice and consideration are much sought after in all matters of weighty business which come to that varied business association.

Mr. Wheless has been a prominent figure at nearly all the meetings of the some time Southern Lumber Manufacturers’ Association -- now the Yellow Pine Manufacturers’ Association -- since the organization of that body, and in matters of organization his advice has always been ready when called for and willingly received.

H. H. Wheless was born in Nashville, Tenn., November 21, 1854. His father, Wesley Wheless, was an interested partner in the cotton firm of Hewitt, Norton & Co., of New Orleans, La., and he was the managing partner of their branch house in Liverpool, England.

Three years after young Wheless -- the subject of this sketch -- was born the family moved to Liverpool, where, when he was 6 years old, his father died. The mother moved back to Nashville and in 1872 married Judge E. H. English, chief justice of the state of Arkansas, and the family home was moved to Little Rock, that state.

Young Wheless went to school up to the age of 14 and then went into the cotton business in Nashville, where he stayed for eight or nine years. In 1879 he came to Arkansas and was for some years in the cotton business in Little Rock, and after that was connected with a railroad in Hempstead county, Arkansas.

In 1889 Mr. Wheless, in company with F. T. Whited, went into the retail lumber business at Shreveport, La. Out of that retail business grew a wholesale business in lumber, and a final broadening out of the efforts of the partnership; purchase of timber lands near Alden Bridge, La.; the building of a mill near that point; and the incorporation, in 1894, of Whited & Wheless, Limited.

During the last thirteen years Whited & Wheless, Limited, have marketed from Alden Bridge an average of 20,000,000 feet of lumber annually.

During these years Mr. Wheless has made a close study of practical forestry and may yet be induced to put his theories into practical operation.

He has kept his investments entirely in the lumber field and is at present vice president of Whited & Wheless, Limited, and a director in the company; president and director in the Dixie Lumber Company, of St. Louis, Mo.; stockholder in and director of the Allen Manufacturing Company, Shreveport, La.; secretary and director of the Black Lake Lumber Company, Campti, La., and vice president and director of the Star & Crescent Lumber Company, of Shreveport, La.

George A. Kelley.
G. A. Kelley, of Lufkin, Tex., is a prominent and most practical member of the administrative cabinet of the Frost-Trigg interests in the southwest. He is an active officer in the field. Mr. Kelley can never be president of the United States, but he can and does hold a rung on the ladder of commercial achievement.

Mr. Kelley is the gentleman who designed the plant of the Union Saw Mill Company and that other model monument in saw mill architecture the plant of the Lufkin Land & Lumber Company, at Lufkin, Tex.

Mr. Kelley was born July, 1861, at Huntingdon, Canada, about fifty miles from Montreal, where he lived until he was 18 years old. At that age he took up the millwright trade and followed it closely for several years, being engaged in building saw mills and flour mills in upper Michigan and Minnesota.

He has been superintendent of the Diamond M Company and the Bovey-De Laittre Lumber Company, at Minneapolis; the Red River Lumber Company, Grand Forks, N. D.; he built the Johnson-Wentworth mill at Cloquet, Minn.; the Murphy Lumber Company mill at Green Bay, Wis., and the mill of the Shelving-Carpenter Company at St. Hilaire, Minn.

Following his saw mill building in the north Mr. Kelley was engaged for a number of years as a salesman for the Edward P. Allis -- now the Allis-Chalmers -- Company, of Milwaukee, Wis. During his career of salesmanship in the south he designed and had charge of the erection of many mills.

Mr. Kelley associated himself in 1901 with E. A. and E. W. Frost, C. D. Johnson and others as vice president of the Lufkin Land & Lumber Company, and he remained in that capacity and as general manager until the sale of the plant in 1906.

Mr. Kelley has residence in Lufkin, Tex., and his every day steady occupation now is the management of the Carter-Kelley Lumber Company at Manning, Tex., of which company he is also president. Besides this connection he is associated, in the capacities indicated, in each of the following companies: President of the Kelley Land & Lumber Company; vice president Lufkin Ice Company; director Lufkin National bank; director Lufkin Foundry & Machine Company; vice president Shreveport, Houston & Gulf Railroad Company; stockholder in the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company; stockholder in the De Soto Land & Lumber Company; stockholder Union Saw Mill Company; stockholder in and director of the Star & Crescent Lumber Company; stockholder in the State Savings & Trust Company, Texarkana, Ark., and a stockholder in the Black Lake Lumber Company.

R. D. Collins.
R. D. Collins is in a particular sense the assistant general manager of the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company at Shreveport, La. In a broader sense he is E. A. Frost’s next-of-kin, commercially, acting for Mr. Frost in many important matters, having the business acumen and diplomatic personality necessary to assist in handling the affairs of a man of such multitudinous and various duties as Mr. Frost.

R. D. Collins, although a young man just stepping into his prime, has cut a figure in the financial world which many older men might envy. He was born in Kentucky and went to Texarkana, Tex., at the age of 5. His mother dying at that time he was reared by an uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Ben Collins. Ben Collins was then -- as now -- one of the pioneer lumbermen and bankers of the southwest, and so the young man was roared in a lumber atmosphere from boyhood.

Young Collins graduated at the Texarkana high school, and when 15 years old entered the employ of the Texarkana, Shreveport & Natchez railroad, becoming the local agent in Texarkana for that line. Afterwards he worked for the Gates City Lumber Company -- a sister organization -- in various capacities for three years.

Mr. Collins’ first experience in banking was as bookkeeper for the Texarkana National bank, which was known as a "lumber bank," with William Buchanan, W. T. Ferguson, Ben Collins, W. R. Grimm and others as its officers and directors. With this institution Mr. Collins gained a great deal of valuable experience, not only about financial matters but about branches of the lumber business.

Together with E. A. Frost, E. W. Frost, Ben Collins, George S. Prestridge, George A. Kelley and others the subject of this sketch organized the Lufkin National bank in 1901, with E. A. Frost as its president, and was cashier and manager of that bank for six years.

As Lufkin was the center of a large lumber district Mr. Collins assisted in the promotion and organization of several lumber companies while acting in the capacity of cashier. He was promoted to the vice presidency of the Lufkin National bank January 1, 1907.

Mr. Collins is now spending most of his time in Shreveport, La., assisting E. A. Frost in the management of the various corporations and enterprises in which he is interested.

Mr. Collins is an officer in and director of the following named concerns; Vice president and director of the Lufkin National bank; secretary and treasurer of the Kelley Land & Lumber Company; treasurer and director of the Carter-Kelley Lumber Company; secretary and treasurer of the Star & Crescent Lumber Company; vice president and treasurer East Texas Railroad Company; director in the Shreveport, Houston & Gulf Railroad Company; auditor of the Mansfield Railway & Transportation Company; assistant general manager of the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company, with headquarters located at Shreveport, La.

Mr. Collins is a stockholder in the following named companies: Union Saw Mill Company; De Soto Land & Lumber Company; Kelley Land & Lumber Company; J. H. Kurth Lumber Company; Lufkin Machine & Foundry Company; the State National bank and the State Savings & Trust Company, both of Texarkana, Ark., and the Shreveport, Houston & Gulf Railroad Company.

A. J. Peavy.
A. J. Peavy is vice president and general manager of the De Soto Land & Lumber Company at Mansfield, La., and was born in Covington county, Alabama, August 8, 1866.

Mr. Peavy's father was a farmer and afterwards moved with his family to Butler county, Alabama, where he was engaged in the timber business. The family left Alabama in 1877 and moved to Angelina county, Texas. Young Peavy, the subject of this sketch, was then 11 years old.

Mr. Peavy worked on a farm and went to school until he was 18, after which his first work in life was four successful years of school teaching. During school vacations he clerked for W. H. Bonner in Mr. Bonner's general store in Lufkin, Tex.

After his experience at teaching and clerking he went into the logging business at Michelli, Texas, for the Tyler Car & Lumber Company, the partnership being known as Bonner, Peavy & Bonner. At the end of fourteen months he sold out his interest in the logging company and spent one and one-half years in the store. He then bought an interest in the T. J. Bonner Logging Company, and logged on the Angelina river for the Tyler Car & Lumber Company.

In 1898 he began business for himself personally, logging for four months for the Emporia Lumber Company, and afterwards made an arrangement for logging the mills of the Angelina County Lumber Company. That was in April, 1899. His contract lasted until June, 1903. In that work he had associated with him for a part of the time his brother, J. E. Peavy.

In 1902 Mr. Peavy helped to organize the Lufkin Foundry & Machine Company and he was assistant secretary and treasurer of the company until 1903, when the Henderson Land & Lumber Company was organized at Clawson, Tex., with Mr. Peavy as vice president and general manager. The company leased a mill on the St. Louis Southwestern railway, six miles from Lufkin, and bought timber of the Foster Lumber Company.

Mr. Peavy remained in business there until he came to Mansfield in 1905. In fact his interest at Clawson did not terminate until the closing out of the business at that point, an event which occurred in July, 1905.

Arthur W. Corkins.
A. W. Corkins, general superintendent of the Union Saw Mill Company at Huttig, Ark., is a mechanician; an erecting engineer, and is much skilled in the management of large and varied industries.

He is in full charge of all operations at Huttig. In this position Mr. Corkins is a valuable man; for, added to his talents as a high class machinist, millwright, mill builder and machine operator, he possesses great ability in assembling men who are competent to do his work with loyalty and continuance.

Mr. Corkins was born in 1873 at Logansport, Ind., and early in his life his parents moved to Beloit, Kan., where he was educated. He came to Kansas City in 1899 and was employed in a telegraph office there. His next position was with the Davis Sash & Door Company at Brookfield, Mo. After Davis Bros. moved their factory to Chicago Mr. Corkins secured a position with the Allis-Chalmers Company. After that he was employed by the Cummer Lumber Company, of Jacksonville, Fla.; the Wilson Cypress Company, of Palatka, Fla.; the camp Manufacturing Company, of De Witt, Va., and by Houston Bros., of Vicksburg, Miss.

He has to his credit the building of many high class saw mills, among which may especially be named those of the Southern Lumber Company, of Diboll, Tex.; the Lyon Cypress Lumber Company, of Garyville, La., and lastly those of the Union Saw Mill Company at Huttig, Ark.

Mr. Corkins has been with the Union Saw Mill Company continuously since its inception and is without doubt the most busy man in all Arkansas.

Milton Winham.
Milton Winham, secretary and treasurer of the Red River Lumber Company, of Frostville, Ark. -- not unlike the Man of France -- "makes circumstances." It is of the circumstances of Mr. Winham's career, man and lumberman, that it is worth while to write.

He was born in Lafayette (now Miller county), Arkansas, in 1863, near the Red river, just above Fulton. After the war the family settled three and a half miles southeast of Texarkana -- that was before the advent of the Iron Mountain railway. Young Winham went to school in the country until his seventeenth year, when he attended school in Texarkana.

Mr. Winham’s father was a Baptist minister and trained his son in integrity and self-reliance, and when he was 18 years of age his father told him to go out into the world and establish himself.

Young Winham dipped just a little into the saw mill business by working for a short space in a sawdust pit, but concluded rapidly that an education was what he most needed -- before a career of business -- and spent the next twelve years of his life in going to school, and in making money at teaching school to go to school some more.

In 1885 young Winham went to work for E. W. Frost at Milton’s Switch on the "Cotton Belt" road. That was a time when the interests that have since spread into the great Frost-Trigg five mills were an individual partnership among E. W. Frost, G. W. Bottoms and W. T. Ferguson.

Young Winham was bookkeeper, timekeeper, scaled logs, did all and various of such like work until he was 22 years old, and in that time the company had cut out at Milton’s Switch and gone to Genoa, Ark., in 1887, and Mr. Winham stayed there as bookkeeper and store man until the fall of 1890, at which time he severed his connection with the Frost saw milling interests and matriculated at the Southwestern Baptist University at Jackson, Tenn., where he remained for three years, going to school ten months and teaching the remainder of the time each year until 1893, when he was graduated with the degree of bachelor of science. He also took a bookkeeping course, completing that on July 8, 1893, and went to work for the Red River Lumber Company the day following.

He began with the Red River Lumber Company as bookkeeper, in September, bought stock in the company, and at that time became an officer in the company.

The company moved from Kelleys, near Lewisville, to Frostville in 1894, and Mr. Winham moved to Frostville. in May, 1895, where he has since resided.

In 1899, when the Lufkin Land Lumber Company was started, Mr. Winham took the position at the Red River Lumber Company made vacant by the fact that E. A. Frost was called to the affairs of the Lufkin Land St Lumber Company. Since that time Mr. Winham as been in active charge of that business, subject to the direction of the president, E. W. Frost.

He is a stockholder in the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company and was one of the incorporators -- now one of the directors. He was an early stockholder in the Union Saw Mill Company and the De Soto Land & Lumber Company, a stockholder in the State Savings & Trust Company of Texarkana and the newly organized Star & Crescent Lumber Company.

Arthur Dean.
Arthur Dean, superintendent of the Noble Lumber Company at Noble, La., was born at Hope, Ark., January 8, 1877. At an early period in the life of Arthur Dean his father, T. M. Dean, now vice president of the Red River Lumber Company at Frostvllle, Ark., associated himself with the E. W. Frost interests at Genoa, Ark., and from that time in his boyhood the subject of this sketch has most of the time been associated with the manufacturing end of the yellow pine industry.

Mr. Dean was educated at the University of Arkansas, and after leaving that institution he resumed his connection with the lumber business, working for several years as assistant shipping clerk for the Red River Lumber Company at Frostville, Ark.

In 1904 Mr. Dean secured a position with the sales department of the W. T. Ferguson Lumber Company at St. Louis, Mo., and remained with that institution for some time.

Upon the installation of the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company offices in Shreveport, La., he accepted the position of bookkeeper in its office. In 1905 he resigned his position with the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company to accept a similar position with the Noble Lumber Company. January 1, 1906, he was promoted to his present position as superintendent of the Noble Lumber Company.

It is natural that E. W. and E. A. Frost should identify themselves with the banking interests of the southwest. This they have done in their connection with the State National bank and the State Savings & Trust Company, of Texarkana, Ark., and the Lufkin National bank, of Lufkin, Tex.

In December, 1895, E. W. Frost, E. A. Frost, W. H. Arnold, W. A. Williams, B. H. Kuhl, R. L. Dalby and E. K. Smith organized the State Bank of Texarkana and opened it for business January 6, 1896, with the modest capital of $25,000. Like all of the Frost interests, this bank has shown a wonderful growth and has been a successful and paying investment since its organization. On March 4, 1904, it was changed to a national bank.

With their usual foresight, and feeling the need of a trust and savings bank to work in connection with the National bank and also to assist the farmers and lumbermen, the officers and directors of the State National bank organized the State Savings Trust Company in Texarkana in March, 1904, its directory being the same as the State National bank, with the addition of C. M. Blocker, treasurer.

In Its comparatively brief career it has experienced a marvelous development and la as great in proportion as its parent institution, the State National bank.

In their enterprises these two institutions have keen a great advertisement for the city of Texarkana and have done much in directing capital to that quarter for investment.

The State Savings & Trust Company is the owner of the State National Bank building, which is conceded to be the finest office building in Arkansas and which brings to the two institutions a gross revenue of more than $2,000 a month.

Financiers and bankers generally will readily agree that the above statements are certainly worth while.

The Lufkin National bank, at Lufkin, Tex., was founded by E. A. Frost and associates May 10, 1901, for the purpose of taking care of their business in that part of Texas where they owned large saw milling interests. This bank has had a phenomenal growth.

Some Texan Financiers.
This, too, is distinctly a lumber bank. The officers of the Lufkin National bank are: E. A. Frost, president; E. A. Mantooth, vice president; R. D. Collins, vice president; W. B. McMullen, cashier; G. R. Thompson, assistant cashier; directors -- E. A. Frost, E. W. Frost, E. K. Smith, R. D. Collins, E. J. Mantooth, G. A. Kelley, G. S. Prestridge, J. W. Prestridge and S. W. Henderson.

E. K. Smith was chief organizer and is the head of the State National bank and the State Savings & Trust Company bank of Texarkana. He is a large stockholder in these banks and has a substantial share of stock in the mills of the Frost-Trigg interests and the Lufkin National bank, of Lufkin. Mr. Smith had the honor of being made president of the Arkansas State Bankers’ Association for the years 1905 and 1906. He numbers among his personal friends some of the greatest financiers in the United States. He is 36 years old and has grown up in the banking business.

Robert L. Dalby, assistant cashier of the State National Bank of Texarkana, is a native of Texas, was born in Bowie county and is in his forty-third year. Mr. Dalby entered the banking business in 1894, was assistant cashier of the State Bank of Texarkana when organized in 1896, and has been identified with every progressive step of that institution and a material factor in the phenomenal growth of that bank and the State Savings & Trust Company, of which latter company he is also secretary and director.

Burchard H. Kuhl, vice president of the State National Bank of Texarkana, is a native of Mississippi, born in 1868. He entered the banking business at the age of 22 at Orlando, Fla., as cashier of the Merchants’ bank at that point.

He located in Texarkana in 1896 and assisted in the organization of the State Bank of Texarkana. He is today vice president of both the State and National bank and State Sav¬ings & Trust Company, of that city.

W. R. McMullen was made cashier of the Lufkin National bank January 8, 1907. Mr. McMullen is in his thirty-fifth year and is a native of Texas. He was a printer from his eighteenth year and a printer and publisher as recently as 1897. Mr. McMullen is a veteran of the Spanish war, having been a member of Company "E," first regiment, United States Volunteer Infantry, entering the rank as private and being mustered out as sergeant. After the war he was employed as clerk for L. W. Wettermark, a banker, from June, 1899, until the Wettermark bank was sold to the organizers of the Lufkin National bank in May, 1901. He was assistant cashier of the Lufkin National bank from its organization until his recent promotion.

C. M. Blocker, treasurer of the State Savings Trust Company, at Texarkana, is the youngest member of the active executive heads of the Frost banking interests, and was born in Texarkana in 1879. He received a common school education, served an apprenticeship for six years in various employments and entered the banking business in his twentieth year as assistant bookkeeper of the Texarkana National bank. After his first experience in Texarkana he was teller of the American National Bank of Fort Smith, Ark., but upon the organization of the State Savings & Trust Company he resigned his position in Fort Smith to assume the position of assistant treasurer of the last named institution, and has since been made director and treasurer as stated above.

The Mansfield Railway & Transportation Company plays such an active part in the destinies of the De Soto Land & Lumber Company that a general description of the facilities of the Frost-Trigg interests would not be complete without a short reference to that general traffic line.

This road, which was originally built by the citizens of Mansfield to connect that parish seat with the Texas & Pacific railway, was not in particularly active operation until the advent in Mansfield of the De Soto Land & Lumber Company. Some of the stockholders in the lumber company interested themselves in the matter, and as a result the little traffic road changed hands and its active officers are now E. A. Frost, president; A. J. Peavy, vice president and general manager; E. H. Payne, secretary and treasurer, and R. J. Wilson, superintendent.

This road has nine employees, two miles of fine road with rails of 56-pound steel, a passenger coach, six box and one express car and one Rogers 30-ton rod engine.

A local firm has leased the passenger service of the line and runs over the road two high class motor cars which carry twenty-five or thirty passengers each and which connect Mansfield with all Texas & Pacific trains. This line is also connected with the Kansas City Southern.

It probably handles 5,000 passengers a year, practically all the general freight that comes to the town of Mansfield over the Texas Pacific system and certainly all of the express that is delivered by way of the Pacific Express Company.

When the new management took possession of the road it laid it with new steel and new ties and built three new and necessary bridges.

The Red River Lumber Company is located at Frostville, Ark., on the Shreveport division of the St. Louis Southwestern Railway, fifteen and one-half miles from Lewisville, Ark., and has the oldest mill of the Frost-Trigg interests. It was chartered November 5, 1890, with $100,000 capital stock.

The first directors of the company were John A. Roberts, Charles E. Bramble, Robert L. Trigg -- all still living -- and William R. Kelley, now dead.

The first mill was located a mile south of what was then New Lewisville, Ark., on the "Cotton Belt" road, at Kelley’s Station.

E. W. Frost had already achieved saw mill wisdom and money before this company was organized, and it is no disparagement to the effort -- and historically true -- that the Red River Lumber Company needed Mr. Frost's saw mill wisdom and money very much, and secured both, on June 17, 1891. E. A. Frost, the son of E. W. Frost, and now the governing executive of 90 percent of the Frost interests in the southwest, became identified with the company in the spring of 1891. Milton Winham, the present secretary, treasurer and active manager of the business of the company, came into the business as a bookkeeper July 9, 1903, and at the following stockholders' meeting became secretary.

E. W. Frost was made president in October, 1893, and Milton Winham secretary. Both of these gentlemen have served ever since in those capacities. In November, 1893, the present location at Frostville, Ark., was secured and early in 1895 the saw mill was moved from Kelley's Station to Frostville, but the planing mill was left at Kelleys to work out the stock on hand; it was destroyed by fire in April of that year.

Ground was broken at Frostville, Ark., March 26, 1895, and a planing mill was erected during the spring and early summer of that year. In 1895 E. A. Frost was made business manager of the company.

On the organization of the Lufkin Land & Lumber Company, in the spring of 1899, E. A. Frost left and went into the active organization of the Lufkin enterprise. At that time Milton Winham was made resident manager of the Red River Lumber Company, and since that time he has been in active charge of all the affairs of the company at Frostville subject to the direction of President E. W. Frost, of Texarkana. On April 10, 1902, the saw mill at Frostville was destroyed by fire. Another mill -- the present one -- was erected the same year, and began operations on September 9. An historical fact in connection with the company is that it has never brought suit, nor has suit been brought against it, during its long and successful career. The present officers are E. W. Frost, president; T. M. Dean, vice president, and Milton Winham, secretary and treasurer.

Frostville Timber Operations.
The timber operations of the Red River Lumber Company have been confined entirely to Lafayette county, Arkansas. The company has purchased to date, and still owns in fee simple, 38,000 acres of land in that county. Besides this ownership of lands in fee simple it has bought, all told, 12,000 acres of timber rights, and has cut over in the years of its operations about 43,000 acres.

The timber on the possessions of the Red River Lumber Company has been and still is, where uncut, about 75 percent shortleaf yellow pine and 25 percent hardwoods.

The land possessions of the company are low and level. The railroad building is never a difficult problem, and the logging a matter of banking in the dry season preparatory for the Tains which follow. The timber on the possessions of the company has never been cut mercilessly, as timber has been cut in many places, except possibly in the last two or three years, when all of it has been taken that could be utilized. Some of the lands might be cut over now with profit and in twenty years it could all certainly be cut over again with results satisfactory to the owners.

The timber cut has produced a high quality of lumber and it is still up to the mark in every respect, running now, as it always has, about 33-1/3 percent to uppers.

The active logging operations have always been done by contract, the present firm of contractors being Allen & Easley, J. R. Allen and R. H. Easley. Now in use are about five miles of main line, logging railway, and two miles of spurs and enough is planned to make thirteen miles, all of which will be built before all the timber will be harvested.

One of the interesting facts is that in all the seventeen years of its history this company has owned but one locomotive, a 28-ton affair, which has all that time been in active service and is still doing daily and effective work.

It is the policy of the log contractors to take the timber back of the spurs, about 600 yards on an average, logging with 4-wheel wagons about six months out of the year, logging from the line farthest away from the spur in toward the spur, so that the nearby timber can be hauled in the rainy season, saving the timber for this purpose about 150 yards on either side of the track.

J. R. Allen is vigorous in his praise of the service of the "American" log loader and says that it is run only about one-third of its capacity to get the requisite amount of logs secured.

Handling Logs at Frostville.
The log pond at Frostville, Ark., is small but it is of just the right character. A remarkable picture was made there which with undoubtedly be recognize, in this article without even a foot note to indicate which picture it is. This pond is 500 feet long and 300 feet wide, will 400,000 feet of logs and kept full all the round.

The Saw Mill at Frostville.
The saw mill at Frostville is contained in a building standing east and west in general direction and has an area of [text missing] feet.

The framing of this mill is put directly on a brick and concrete foundation. The framing of the stairs is 14x14 inches resting on brick and concrete foundation in combination. The framing stairs for the second [text missing] the half story is [text missing] inches.

The engine and boiler house is a frame affair, covered with metal siding and roofing, and is erected just north of the saw mill. The boilers consist of two horizontal tubular affairs, 66 inches in diameter and 18 feet long, built by the Brownell Boiler Company, of Dayton, Ohio. There are Dutch ovens set in brick. The boilers are fed automatically. The engine is a McDonough 20x20 inches in size, rotary valve.

On the saw floor are Filer & Stowell band, with 8-inch wheel and a 12-inch face, and a shotgun feed 10 inches in diameter. The 3-block carriage, which will cut up to 24 feet, is a Filer & Stowell. The edger on this saw floor is a [text missing] gang made by the Filer & Stowell Company. The saw trimmer and live [missing text] were also made by the Filer & Stowell Company. The slab carrier runs directly to the west and is 250 feet long.

The average daily capacity of this saw mill is 55,000 feet. It, however, has cut as much as 73,279 feet of inch boards in one day, this run having been made in July, 1906.

Dry Kilns at Frostville.
The dry kilns at Frostville, Ark., are of the Standard variety and consist of two rooms, each 20x110 feet in area.

These kilns are remarkably well built and are constructed with pressed brick and have asbestos roofing.

The walls are thirteen inches thick. The steam for dry kilns comes from a boiler in the planing mill battery situated 250 feet west of the dry kilns.

Planing Mill at Frostville.
The planing mill at Frostvllle was built in the spring of 1895 and is 54x110 feet in area. The boiler and shaving house at the north end of the planing mill plant is 25x60 feet. The brick shaving room is 16x25 feet. The boilers, located in the boiler house, are two in number, manufactured by Walsh & Wiedner, of Chattanooga, Tenn., and are of high pressure type, 66 inches in diameter and 18 feet long.

The engine is 16x24, built by the Murray Iron Works, of Burlington, Iowa, and stands in the corner of the planing mill building proper on a combination brick and concrete foundation. In this planing mill are four Hall & Brown Woodworking Machine Company molders; one S. A. Woods molder; one resaw; one two-saw edger; five cutoff saws; one 50-inch Sturtevant blower; one Cyclone self-feed for furnaces, and necessary filing machinery. A Dean Bros. air compressor is located in the boiler house for use in the deep well.

Lumber Handling at Frostvllle.
The lumber from the tail of the mill falls on to sorting chains, running south from the southwest corner of the building, where it is graded and the common lumber taken off and loaded on "dollies." Twenty dollies, manipulated by fourteen men, put this common lumber in pile. The yard is so systematized that each length goes on to separate trams. The lumber is piled "down and up." These trams are eight feet from the ground and the lumber is piled as high as it can be jacked. There are in the yard 6,280 lineal feet of tramways, the decks all of oak. Two thousand feet of these trams are 16 feet wide and 4,280 feet 12 feet wide.

The good lumber, or "B and better," goes on the sorting chains direct to a point 135 feet south of the mill, where it is stacked by two men and two boys on kiln trucks.

Coming out of the kilns the flooring strips are usually taken directly to the planing mill and worked and graded and put direct on cars or in the dressed lumber shed.

The finish coming from the kilns usually goes directly by truck to the rough dry shed, where it is graded and sorted as to both widths and lengths and placed in bins. This shed holds 800,000 feet, is 58x175 feet in area and stands 200 feet south of the dry kilns.

The dressed sheds are south of the planing mill and adjacent to loading trams. The one along loading tram is 20x350 feet; the other stands at right angles to the one just mentioned. These trams hold 1,000,000 feet of dressed lumber. The loading dock is 800 feet long and will accommodate twenty cars.

Fire Protection at Frostvllle.
At the saw mill is a well 6 inches in diameter and 160 feet in depth which produces 75,000 gallons of water daily. This water is used only for the engine at the saw mill and the overflow goes into a tank holding 20,000 gallons. The general overflow enters the log pond. A suction pipe for the fire pump is connected with the tank and also with the mill pond and could furnish a supply of about 4,000,000 gallons.

The mains about the mill are four inches in diameter and the mill is protected inside and out with hydrants, placed at proper points about the building, to which hose is continually connected. There are the usual number of barrels and buckets disposed at proper points for fire fighting.

The lineal length of piping equals about 4,700 feet. There are thirty hydrants and two general fire pumps, one 12x8x2 and one 12x6x12.

All points of the plant are connected by a Patrick ft Carter Company watchman's clock service, with a time indicator in the office and five stations.

Electric Lights at Frostvllle.
The dynamo for the production is located in the boiler house, adjacent to the planing mill, and the power is applied by a Frost Manufacturing Company 30-horsepower engine made at Galesburg, Ill., the steam supplied by the planing mill boilers. The dynamo has a voltage of 250 and is an Eddy, direct current, supplied by the Western Electric Supply Company, of St. Louis, Mo. There are in use about 250 16-candle power lamps and five arc lamps.

Mercantile End at Frostvllle.
A general merchandise store is maintained in a building 40x100 feet in size. In this building are the Western Union Telegraph office, St. Louis Southwestern ticket office and postoffice and office of the physician of the lumbering community.

The store does not cater to country trade and is run almost exclusively for the benefit of the employees of the company. E. E. Williams manages the business with the assistance of one clerk and is also telegraph operator, railway ticket agent, postmaster and notary public.

Miscellaneous Frostvllle Affairs.
Frostvllle, Ark., will probably be a thing of the past as a saw mill town in two years and a half from the present time. The business there, although of very great importance, is manipulated by fewer men than that of almost any other prominent institution of its character in the southwest.

Frostvllle is connected by long-distance telephone with various independent lines of the southwest and through independent lines at various points with the Bell Telephone Company, the Southwestern Telephone Company etc.

There are ample schools and a union church where services are held. The various amusements etc. are given in the school building and Frostvllle is the home of Arkansas Lodge No. 527 A. F. & A. M.

By an arrangement made by the Red River Lumber Company all employees, whether married or single, pay $1 a month for medical service.

The Noble Lumber Company, located at Noble, La., on the main line of the Kansas City Southern railway, fifty-six miles south of Shreveport, is the second plant instituted by the Frost interests.

The Noble Lumber Company as it now stands is practically owned by and is under the management of the De Soto Land & Lumber Company, of Mansfield, La., and is in itself successor to the R. L. Trigg Lumber Company, organized in 1899, the succession by the Noble Lumber Company occurring April 24, 1902. The town of Noble was founded in 1897. This town, including the saw mill population, has about 1,500 inhabitants and Western Union telegraph and Wells-Fargo express facilities.

The timber being logged for use at Noble is of a very superior quality, a fine grained, shortleaf yellow pine, comprehended in medium sized logs, running very uniform in character. These logs are brought in over a narrow gage road which runs in general direction a little to the north of west from Noble. The main line of this railroad is seven miles long and the spur tracks now in use are about five miles long. Although this road is one of short inclines and deep cuts it is logged exclusively with road engines, one being a 16-ton Baldwin, another a 30-ton Rogers and still another a 30-ton Brooks of the mogul type. The rail is 40 and 35-pound. There are used a total of nineteen cars, including one feed car. To manipulate the railroad there are altogether twenty-five employees.

Woods Operations at Noble.
The woods operations at Noble are done from one logging camp, five miles from the mill, where thirty-five houses are in use for black and white and five bored wells supply the water. This will be the logging headquarters for three or four years to come.

This is the only one of the mills of these interests where the logging is done as a part of the mill work, in a direct way, and employed to do this work, all told, are just thirty-two men.

In the line of "stock" 6 horses, 17 mules and 36 oxen are used. To get the logs to the spur side 3 carts, 3 four-wheel wagons and 3 eight-wheel wagons are used, so it can readily be seen what a varied process is the logging of the Noble Lumber Company.

A branch of the store at Noble is located in the woods for the convenience of the men installed at the woods camps.

All of this very particularly itemized story of the railway and the woods operations is entered into to indicate what a few men and a well managed small equipment can accomplish, which will be illustrated by this last statement -- viz. -- with this outfit there is delivered to the mill at Noble each working day 65,000 feet of logs.

The Saw Mill at Noble.
The saw mill of the Noble Lumber Company stands back of the Kansas City Southern railway at Noble, to the west, one-eighth of a mile, on a prominent knoll. Its general direction is north and south.

The logs are banked on two ramps on either side of a track, upon which a low decked car is run down from the log deck of the mill the whole length of the two ramps, and the logs are loaded on the car and hauled into the mill as needed.

The saw mill is a double band, but at the present time only one side of the mill is being run, which is producing an average of 50,000 feet daily, board measure. This mill bears a notable record, having accomplished the sawing of 87,000 feet of lumber in one day. It began to make lumber October 28, 1899, and has run steadily ever since.

The saw mill building is 40x170 feet in area. On the ground floor are the usual "niggers," steam trips, log loaders, line shafts etc.

On the saw floor are the two band mills, one a Filer & Stowell running a 12-inch saw on an 8-inch wheel and an Allis-Chalmers 3-block carriage, run by an 8-inch shotgun feed. The second mill is a McDonough Manufacturing Company affair and has a McDonough 4-block carriage and an 8-inch shotgun feed. This mill is not being run at present.

The edger is a 6-saw McDonough and there is an Allis-Chalmers 26-foot trimmer. The filing room on the east side of the mill building is 30x40 feet in area and contains a full complement of filing room tools for band and circular saws.

The power house on the west side of the saw mill building, 30x30 feet in area, contains two boilers, one 56 inches by 16 feet and one 48 inches by 16 feet. A Worthington double cylinder pump is used for both boiler feed and fire protection purposes and has the usual number of injectors and complementary devices. Next to the boiler house is the engine room, 18x26 feet in area, containing a Houston, Stanwood & Gamble engine, 20x28 inches. The slab conveyor is 250 feet long, the chain made up of 7/8-inch 6-inch lengths. There are three smoke stacks to the boiler plant, each sixty feet high.

Dry Kilns at Noble.
The dry kiln at Noble consists of two rooms, will hold 90,000 feet of lumber, is of the Standard variety, in area 48x122 feet, will dry 30,000 feet of lumber daily, and the lumber is put into the kiln endwise. These kilns are built of brick with very thick walls, are situated 200 feet east of the saw mill and are reached by elevated trams from all directions necessary.

The steam for use in the drying of lumber is generated in a separate boiler house, the building being 20x40 feet in area located 65 feet south of the kilns. The boiler is 64 inches by 16 feet. In this room are an automatic pump and injector of the Gardiner variety.

At the dry kiln boiler house is the general shaving vault for the plant, 16x20 feet in area. There is located the separator. The fan is on the planing mill. The pipe extends from the separator to the planing mill and from the planing mill to the saw mill and is altogether 1,060 feet long, 21 inches in diameter, and was erected by the Shreveport Sheet Iron Works & Blow Pipe Company.

The Planing Mill at Noble.
The planing mill stands just west of the main line track of the Kansas City Southern railway, nearly opposite the depot at that point, and is in the main building 80x110 feet in area, standing north and south in general direction.

The boiler house is on the north end, is 24x36 feet in area and contains an Erie Engine Works boiler, 72 inches by 16 feet. The engine is a 16x24 made by G. B. Hodgeman at Erie, Pa.

The planing mill contains one 18-inch matcher; one 15-inch matcher; two 7-inch matchers; one 10-inch molder; one resaw and one edger, all made by the Hall & Brown Woodworking Machine Company of St. Louis, Mo., and one 50-inch B. F. Sturtevant blower and fan.

The filing room of the planing mill is 16x20 in area and is well equipped with all necessary machinery. It is driven by the general engine for this part of the plant. The smokestack of the planing mill is 24 inches in diameter and 65 feet high.

Handling Lumber at Noble.
The lumber yard at Noble is spread out between the line of the Kansas City Southern railway and the saw mill building.

The lumber comes down an inclined conveyor from the tail of the mill and drops to a 3-chain sorter, 20 feet wide, which runs to the east for 120 feet.

The tramways on both sides of this conveyor are twenty feet wide and the inch common is taken off on the north side and the 2-inch common on the south side of this sorter by two men.

Two-wheel lumber buggies have been provided which take the common lumber to the yards; about sixty of these buggies are in use. The clear lumber goes direct to the kiln and is hand stacked by two men.

The greatest amount of common lumber is sent to the yards direct, but a small percentage of this common lumber is sent to the dry kiln on rush orders etc.

The common lumber is separated and put along each side of ten trams, all told 6,280 feet in length.

The lumber coming from the kilns which is not sent direct to the planer goes to the rough dry sheds, 320 feet east of the kilns, by way of "dollies." This shed is 300 feet long and 20 feet wide and holds at least a million feet of lumber. It is 200 feet from the planer, and the lumber is taken from the sheds to the planer by dollies.

After the lumber is planed, and if it is not to be put directly on the ears, it is trucked by dollies to the dressed lumber sheds; the shed 20x120 feet; the siding shed 20x100 feet in area.

The flooring sheds, three in number, situated north of the planing mill, are 20x175 feet, 20x150 feet, and 20x120 feet in area, and hold a million feet of lumber.

The loading docks at Noble ore 750 feet long and twenty cars con be loaded at a time, the daily capacity for loading being four cars.

Miscellaneous Matters at Noble.
Fire protection at Noble is very complete. There are one deep well at the planer, with a 3-inch discharge, with a capacity of 150,000 gallons every twelve hours; a deep well elsewhere in the plant, 480 feet deep with 4-inch discharge, with a proportionate daily capacity above the first mentioned well; a pond which covers ten or twelve acres from which the water is regularly used; and two ground tanks for water storage purposes 20x20x12 feet in dimension and holding gallons each.

There are altogether three fire pumps, one at the planing mill, one at the saw mill and one at the pond, which can all be attached to the water lines either separately or together.

There is, throughout the yard, the necessary piping hose, hydrants, water barrels and complement of buckets.

South of the dry kilns is a building 16x20 feet in size where is housed the electric light plant, consisting of an Erie City Iron Works engine, 8x12 inches in size, and a dynamo installed by Spranley & Reed, of New Orleans. Four arc lights are in use in and about the plant and a sufficient number of 16-candle power lights to light the offices, the store and various necessary portions of the plant.

Noble is connected with the Southwestern Telephone Company; it has not now a private system of its own but will probably install such a system soon.

The fire protection is made more effective by a 12-station Newman watchman’s alarm. Two regular watchmen are employed in a general sense, and one extra man for the dry kilns.

Noble has a Chapter of Woodmen of the World; a Baptist and Methodist church, medical service provided by the company at $1.25 a month for the married men and 75 cents a month for the single men. The only strictly amusement venture that the town contains is a well patronized skating rink.

Noble supports a very superior common school; 150 pupils are now in attendance, presided over by two very competent teachers. A fine picture of the school house, with the children let out for noon, was secured by the Lumberman’s artist and is printed elsewhere.

January 28, 1905, the AMERICAN LUMBERMAN gave to the world the first great illustrated story of the Union Saw Mill Company, covering thirty-two full pages in this publication.

In the first Union Saw Mill Company story reference was made to the happening as the coming of a "Light in a Dark Corner." That light now radiates over a territory sixty-five miles long and twenty-five miles wide, and burns brighter each day of its history.

At that time the timber holdings, both timber land and timber rights, aggregated 90,000 acres. November 1, 1906, the timber holdings, all told, amounted to 340,000 acres, 94,343 acres of this ownership being land held in fee simple. The land and timber possessions of the Union Saw Mill Company are almost entirely situated in Union county, Arkansas, and Union parish, Louisiana.

Foundations for the first saw mill at Huttig, Ark., the home of the Union Saw Mill Company, were laid in February, 1904, and in August of that year the mill produced nearly 2,500,000 feet of lumber. The first lumber was made in the first mill erected in Huttig on June 14, 1904.

Timber Operations at Huttig.
Timber is delivered to the mill of the Union Saw Mill Company at Huttig by the Culbreath Logging Company, over the lines of the logging railroad owned by the Union Saw Mill Company, and laid and operated by the Culbreath Logging Company, and over the tracks of the traffic lines mentioned below.

The total railway mileage actually in use and now in process of immediate building aggregates, all told, forty-five miles. Twenty miles of this is built of 56-pound steel and twenty-five miles of 35-pound stool. The Union Saw Mill Company to facilitate its logging operations also has trackage rights over the Little Rock & Monroe railway, the Farmerville & Southern railroad and the Eldorado & Bastrop railway, aggregating 113 miles.

In the service of the Culbreath Logging Company and the Union Saw Mill Company, all told, are seven locomotives.

The car equipment for timber hauling and camp use is very complete, consisting of 162 logging cars, fourteen camp cars, two cabooses, seven hand cars and four speeders.

The work of loading the timber on the cars in the woods is done with three "American" log loaders, and the logging operations are now done from three camps. With the equipment specified 300,000 feet of logs are daily put into the pond at Huttig.

Log Handling at Huttig.
The logs are handled into Mill No. 1 at Huttig from a made pond, 400x600 feet in area, which will soon be enlarged to a pond 600x800 feet in area, from which both mills at Huttig will be served and which when completed will hold at least 3,000,000 feet of logs.

The No. 2 mill, which will be referred to later on, has been logged to date from a canal or sluice way 600 feet long and fifty feet wide, which runs directly north from the north end of the mill, the trains of logs being run in upon either side and the logs dumped directly into the canal. With the log pond finally enlarged this canal or sluice way will be merged into the enlarged pond.

The Saw Mills at Huttig.
The saw mills at Huttig, when in full operation, in that halcyon time when this present Desert-of-Sahara car famine will be past, will consist of four complete band mills, housed in two complete buildings about 720 feet apart, both saw mills standing north and south in general direction and located east of the Little Rock & Monroe railway. Besides the lumber making facilities of these mills they contain facilities for lath manufacture to the extent of 140,000 lath daily.

Saw mill No. 1 contains two band mills of the No. 3 Allis-Chalmers type, with 8-foot wheels; three block carriages; 12-inch shotgun feeds, and a double Allis-Chalmers 9-saw edger; with all other necessary complementary machinery and a lath mill equipment which will produce 50,000 lath daily, all driven by a Filer & Stowell 24x48 inch Corliss engine.

The average cut of Mill No. 1, day run, ten hours, is 100,000 feet. It has cut, however, ns much as 164,263 feet of inch boards in eleven hours, this having been its banner run.

Mill No. 2 was erected in 1906. Ground was broke for its erection March 15 of that year and it began sawing lumber July 17, 1906. This mill is contained in a building 80x140 feet in area and is of the type of construction not ordinarily seen in saw mills anywhere Concrete has been used so profusely in the foundation of this mill building that it would not be an exaggeration to say that it stands on a solid rock 80x140 feet in area, as this concrete composition extends in proper thickness entirely under the building.

This building was erected to contain, when complete, two band mills with full quota of edgers, trimmers and all necessary collateral machinery and besides this, probably the largest lath mill equipment in the yellow pine country. However, the unprecedented car shortage has precluded the necessity for a full equipment of this mill at the present time and it contains today, besides the lath mill outfit, one complete Filer & Stowell band mill equipment of 14-inch saw on an 8-foot wheel, the carriage run by a 12-inch shotgun feed. The present capacity of the one band now running is 50,000 feet, day run, and ample space has been provided for putting in another band mill. The refuse is cut up by two Diamond Iron Works "hogs" and utilized for fuel purposes.

The power house just west of mill No. 2 contains nine Casey & Hedges boilers, 72 inches in diameter and 18 feet long, each in marine setting, with Dutch oven. This power is drawn on for steam for the fourteen dry-kilns, electric light and ice plants, and is connected with planing mill and fire pumps at water works station, so as to furnish steam in event of accident to the regular equipment.

Dry Lumber at Huttig.
The dry kilns are remarkably complete. They are of three kinds, the National, the Standard, and another very superior affair, largely made useful by the constructive skill of the local mechanical engineers of the Union Saw Mill Company.

The dry kiln rooms now in use number fourteen and will hold when full 535,000 feet of lumber and when run full capacity will turn out not less than 280,000 feet of bone-dry lumber daily.

Storing and Dressing Lumber at Huttig.
At least 60 percent of the lumber product of the Union Saw Mill Company goes through the dry kilns. The lumber is handled from the mills to the kilns by the usual chain sorter, from which the No. 2 common and the Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4 dimension are taken to the yard.

The kilns are situated between the two mills and the lumber is sorted as to lengths on an edge | sorter of mammoth dimensions and run through kilns in the usual manner.

Mule dollies are used for transferring lumber from the various points, either to the yards or from the yards to the planing mill. Twenty mules are used to handle the product. No stacking is done at night.

The product of the Union Saw Mill Company runs 36.8 percent to B and better.

Two rough lumber sheds are utilized, 105x240 feet in area each, and there is a shed for lath, 22x224-1/4 feet; thus 3,500,000 feet of lumber in rough shape can be stored at this place.

The dressed lumber shed, which is located south of the planing mills, is 118x216-1/2 feet in area and holds 1,500,000 feet of dressed stock.

The planing mill is contained in a building 80x252 feet in area, and north of the planing mill building is a boiler house 42x62 feet in area. The engine to transmit the power is a Filer & Stowell Corliss, 22x42 feet in size. Most of the machinery in this planing mill was manufactured by the Hall & Brown Wood Working Machine Company, of St. Louis, Mo. There are also some S. A. Woods machines.

Railroad Facilities at Huttig.
The Union Saw Mill Company has the advantage of two traffic lines which under ordinary circumstances provide ample shipping facilities, but which in these troublous car shortage days do not count for much.

At Huttig are ample loading docks and a trained force of men competent to load out 600 cars of lumber a month the year round, but there has been no use for such ample service at Huttig since September 15 last, entirely on account of inadequate car service.

The main railroad at Huttig is the Little Rock & Monroe railway, a branch of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern railway, which connects with a series of branches of that road reaching the main line at Gurdon, Ark. This railway also connects with the "Queen & Crescent" line at Monroe, La., and with the Texas & Pacific at Alexandria, La.

Another traffic line has headquarters at Huttig, the Louisiana & Pine Bluff railway, chartered to run a line twenty miles to the north and west and which has in actual operation in sidings and tracks about Huttig and in the main traffic line running from Huttig to Dollar Junction, Ark. (a junction point on the Eldorado & Bastrop branch of the Iron Mountain railroad), all told, about eight and one-half miles of track.

There is a passenger train over the Louisiana & Pine Bluff railway which connects Huttig, Ark., with Eldorado, Ark., in a triple daily service carrying the United States mail, passengers, baggage and Pacific express.

Just now surveys are being made with a definite view to extending this road, possibly as far north as Pine Bluff, Ark. It will certainly be built for at least twenty-five miles north, and with this end in view W. E. Atkinson, a well known civil engineer in the southwest -- the gentleman who built the Little Rock & Monroe railway -- has been engaged to take charge of the engineering.

Machine Shops at Huttig.
The machine shop at Huttig, Ark., owned by the Union Saw Mill Company is one of the best equipped and best managed institutions in Arkansas, not only as regards its equipment for taking care of all the work to be done about a great saw mill plant like that of the Union Saw Mill Company but in a general sense as well.

This plant has been so measurably enlarged in the last two years that it will receive especial mention. It is practically a separate institution and can be and often is run in a particularly separate sense. It has been largely responsible for a fairly good equipment of the Little Rock & Monroe railway during the last few months, as well as looking after repairs and rebuilding the necessary Union Saw Mill company equipment.

Mill Company equipment.
In connection with the machine shop are a pattern shop and a complete foundry, equipped to make everything that is apt to break about this or any other saw mill plant.

In this machine shop locomotives have been completely rebuilt and log cars can be built throughout.

In connection with the machine shop and in its yards, as it were, is a commodious roundhouse, arranged to hold eight locomotives and fitted with a regular turn table.

The roundhouse and machine shop buildings are fitted with pipes and the necessary apparatus by which drills for both wood and iron work are run pneumatically.

Huttig Lights and Telephones.
The electric plant at Huttig is a very complete affair and is necessarily out of the ordinary in size, because more than the ordinary effort is made at Huttig to spread such comfort as electric light will bring throughout most of the homes in the town, and, again, the policy of the institution is to run the plant at night whenever such a thing is a business necessity.

The electric light plant is located in a building in the machine shop group, which is also used for the ice factory. There are two machines for the production of the light, one of 60 and the other of 100-kilowatts. Each machine is run by a separate high-speed Brownell engine.

The entire plant, store, emergency hospital, offices, hotels -- both white and colored -- and the principal dwellings of Huttig are electrically lighted.

Installed at Huttig is a most complete telephone service. At points considered most necessary are, all told, nineteen receivers with at least fifty miles of line.

Several long distance telephone lines in southern Arkansas are connected in a more or less intricate way one with another, and in the office of the Union Saw Mill Company is a local long distance office.

Fire Protection at Huttig.
It is undoubtedly no exaggeration to say that the water supply at Huttig is superior for fire fighting purposes, for steam making purposes and for drinking water in the homes to that of any other place of like size in the southern states.

A wonderful reservoir containing thirty-five acres of surface has been constructed and holds water enough at all times to run the plant, and if need be the town, and furnish plenty of water supply for fire fighting purposes for a period of six months.

The supply from which is used the water that is needed in the homes for drinking and cooking purposes is obtained from four flowing wells. From these wells flow naturally each day 400,000 gallons of water. The capacity of the wells is increased, however, by deep well pumps, so that their output can be run up to 800,000 gallons for the four wells each twenty-four hours.

The water from these wells is put into two ground tanks which hold 150,000 gallons and from there is pumped into an elevated tank which holds 50,000 gallons. This artesian water, besides being used to supply the town, is also utilized for the ice plant. The water piping that permeates the town of Huttig and all portions of the plant is nearly 55,000 lineal feet long and is made up of 12-inch, 8-inch, 6-inch, 4-inch and 3-inch and smaller pipe as to diameter.

There are many small pumps for boiler feed etc., and two particular pumps have keen installed for pressure of water for fire protection, as have an Underwriter’s of 500 gallons per minute capacity and another of similar type of 1,000 gallons per minute capacity.

In use at Huttig are 4,000 feet of hose of all sizes, many hose carts for the use of the fire companies, and in various parts of the plant, ready for immediate service, sixty-five hydrants, 300 water barrels and 600 buckets.

There are four complete fire companies which practice in a competitive way and for the practice itself upon four separate days each week, each practice session consuming an hour. There are twelve trained men in each company and these companies are all under the supervision of A. Newby, superintendent of lumber manufacture in the day time, and W. H. Wheeler, who is superintendent of manufacture during the night hours. One general watchman and four assistant watchmen are maintained to keep the night vigil for protective service against conflagration.

The Mercantile End at Huttig.
The mercantile end of the Union Saw Mill Company at Huttig is maintained for no other purpose than the accommodation of the employees of that plant and the inhabitants of Union county, all of which is proven by the fact that it did a business in 1906 of $223,091.24 and showed a profit of only 8 percent, which certainly substantially proves that there is one "company store" at least which is a benefaction rather than an incubus.

This store at Huttig is probably one of the most complete general stores in a town of its size in the world. In it are employed, all told, fourteen people -- experts in their various lines -- to look after the business.

The business in this store is divided into departments of dry-goods, groceries, hardware, drugs, millinery, furnishing goods, boots and shoes and meats. The meat market is equipped with four large cold storage rooms in which all kinds of fresh meat, oysters, perishable supplies etc. are kept.

The Model Farm Near Huttig.
Just beyond the western limits of Huttig there is being wrought out of the rolling red and white hills, which have but recently been covered with pine trees, a really model farm. This farm is a company affair, incorporated as the Union County Farm & Dairy Company, and its management has spent several thousand dollars in clearing and planting, during two seasons, with very encouraging results. Many hundreds of peach and pear trees are in flourishing growth, thousands of strawberry plants show their dark green leaves on the southern slopes, and several acres hold grape arbors, besides fields devoted to alfalfa, oats, potatoes, onions and other garden truck. A competent farmer is in charge of all this agricultural work.

Huttig, the Model Town.
The subhead above does not require the qualifying words "saw mill." Huttig is a model town without qualification, but it would not do to let it go at that. There are many reasons for this statement, some of which were given in a former article. At that time, however, many of the advantages of Huttig over other towns of its class were only planned -- were just ideas, in incubation.

Dr. R. E. Rowland, assisted by Dr. J. E. Bailey, is employed to look after the general health of the 1,700 inhabitants of the little town of Huttig, and there is an emergency hospital down near the railway station, but it seems to the writer that the doctors have a great deal of time in which to cultivate their admirable social qualities and the emergency hospital is principally a storage place for glittering instruments with horribly long names. The doctors are bright and shining members of the community who could not be spared, and the emergency hospital is of course a necessity -- a precautionary necessity -- but really there is an abstract condition at Huttig which, try as they may, the builders of most saw mill towns find hard to possess, and that condition is found in the topographical lay of the ground on which the town of Huttig is built and the magnificent artesian water supply, which in itself is better medicine than any drug store affords.

The topography of Huttig makes it a town of natural drainage so that the possibility of fevers and malaria is practically wiped out.

The social, physical and spiritual comfort of the inhabitants of Huttig has been looked after very closely and made a matter of policy and principle of the Union Saw Mill Company by C. D. Johnson, its founder and president. A great amusement ball, 100x112 feet in area, has been erected, fronting on the main street of Huttig just north of the general store, and contains a pool and billiard ball and bowling alley, as well kept as in the larger cities; a model bakery and confectionery store; a tastefully decorated and fitted ice-cream parlor, and beyond that there is a large skating rink, substantially tented over, and beyond that a Chinese laundry, and on the opposite side of the street a restaurant which keeps open and in service day and night.

Huttig maintains a high class ice and refrigerating plant of 10-ton daily capacity and in the summer months ice water for drinking purposes is piped to all parts of the manufacturing plant of the Union Saw Mill Company for the constant use of the men at work.

There are three well regulated hotels in the town of Huttig, among them the Union hotel, for the accommodation of some of the heads of departments who do not care to undertake housekeeping, and for the special accommodation of transient visitors, who are numerous. This main hotel is as good a $2 a day hotel as there is in Arkansas.

Another hotel is maintained for the use of the white laboring men who wish hotel accommodations, and there is still another hotel in the negro quarters for their use.

The educational facilities of Huttig are of a very high class. A school is maintained for white children, on a par with the usual high schools of small cities, which is presided over by four teachers, and there all the grammar grades and more advanced English studies are taught and, besides this, music, bookkeeping and stenography. This school is maintained in a large two-story building situated on a commanding knoll in the white residence quarter of Huttig, and during February, 1907, 175 pupils were enrolled.

This school is supported by the usual 5-mill tax and is created for the special use of the town of Huttig, which is constituted a special district. Any deficiency that may occur in the necessary funds to sustain this school is made up by subscription, by the patrons, and the school is maintained nine months out of the year.

A negro school is maintained in the negro quarter of the town, also by tax and subscription, where sixty negro pupils are taught the common branches by competent teachers.

The particular pride of Huttig is its magnificent church building, erected by the Union Saw Mill Company, adjoining which is a public library of about volumes, which library is open every evening from 7 to 9 o'clock. The Rev. John Bererton, a liberal preacher of prominence and great ability, has had charge of the Union church services and the pastorate of Huttig for over two years.

A large church building has also recently been erected for the use of the negroes of the town.

There are commodious lodge rooms in the school building where prosperous bodies of Blue Lodge Masonry, Odd Fellowship and Woodmen of the World meet regularly for work and instruction.

The Union Saw Mill Company maintains well fitted up dwellings of all sizes and characters to contribute to the comfort of its employees who desire homes. The dwellings in the possession of the company are over 250 in number.

All the public service buildings of Huttig -- hotels, schools, churches, amusement halls etc. -- were erected and equipped by the Union Saw Mill Company and donated to the various uses mentioned.

A savings department is connected with the Union Saw Mill Company and taken care of in its offices at Huttig, and now has on deposit over $24,000 of the savings of the employees of the company. This savings department pays 4 percent on deposits -- granting privilege of withdrawal at any time -- and is patronized by all classes of the Union Saw Mill employees. This department has been in operation since May, 1905.

After minute investigation of the De Soto Land & Lumber Company's resources; the arrangement of its plant near Mansfield; the character of the men who operate its various departments; and having a knowledge of the amount of its profits, the writer (without desiring to make invidious comparisons) must say that it is one among the very first of the model saw mill operations of the United States.

Every statement which will follow -- each one of which has been carefully and thoughtfully weighed -- will form a chain of indisputable facts which will prove the statement contained above, and prove it to any business man in or out of the business of yellow pine lumber, or any other lumber production.

Those in interest in this enterprise are very modest in their assertions, and have given the facts only after much questioning and investigation. And the items of fact have been given by those in interest without any knowledge "born of a hope" as to what they might finally add up to bring about a conclusion.

E. A. and E. W. Frost owned 115,000,000 feet of shortleaf yellow pine timber located in De Soto parish, Louisiana, and in 1904 cast about for a plan for its disposition. The first idea was the sale of it in October of that year to George E. Harris, George H. Byrnes and Thomas Byrnes; but the final result was that the Messrs. Frost concluded to go actively into the creation of a yellow pine manufacturing business at Mansfield, La., having associated with them the gentlemen mentioned; and on January 1, 1905, the De Soto Land & Lumber Company was incorporated by E. A. Frost, Thomas Byrnes, G. E. Harris and G. H. Byrnes. The authorized capital stock of the company at the beginning was $200,000, $100,000 paid in.

Mr. Harris remained with the company only four months, when his interest was sold to E. A. Frost.

A. J. Peavy, now vice president and general manager of the company, was made Mr. Harris, successor and took charge of the business May 1, 1905. All of the land holdings in the beginning were located within twelve miles of Mansfield and they were valued chiefly for the very superior shortleaf yellow pine timber contained thereon. The timber holdings at the present time contain some longleaf yellow pine and much valuable hardwood.

The officers of the company are E. A. Frost, president; A. J. Peavy, vice president and general manager; Thomas Byrnes, secretary; G. H. Byrnes, treasurer.

One of the strongest features of the De Soto Land & Lumber Company is the matter of its superb railway connections. By means of the Mansfield Railway & Transportation Company -- a regularly incorporated traffic line, short it is true but just as effective for transportation purposes as if it were a great trunk Tine -- the plant, which is about two miles south of Mansfield, has direct connection with the Texas & Pacific railway and the Kansas City Southern railway.

On the first Tuesday in January, 1906, the company increased its authorized capital stock to $500,000 and bought the timber holdings and plant of the Noble Lumber Company, Incorporated, at Noble, La., with all its belongings.

Loggings Operations at Mansfield.
Logging camp No. 1 is sixteen miles from the mill, but not even then at the end of the line of the logging railroad.

The people in the camps, the stock and the engines, are supplied with water from both dug and bored wells. The employees in the logging division are about equally divided between white and black and enough camp houses are situated in Camp No. 2 to accommodate all of the seventy-five employees who are interested in that end of the work. The personnel of these employees is made up of many families. Many of the camp houses are portable.

In the logging operations are used 3 horses, 65 mules and 40 oxen. This stock is taken care of in comfortable corrals in Camp No. 1.

The logging is done by contract by Kerr, Burgess & Wilson. The logging is done with an "American" log loader, which this company considers the best in the market and which easily handles daily the 100,000 feet of logs necessary to have handled to keep pace with the smooth running saw at the plant near Mansfield. The management considers that this loader will handle the logs better and more of them at less expense for repairs than any similar machine in the field. With this machine has been loaded as high a 90,000 feet of logs in five hours, with four men, and the machine is not usually in service more than eight hours a day.

It is the policy of the De Soto Land & Lumber Company to have its contractors keep a large supply of logs, running into millions of feet, at all times along the right of way of the logging road and its spurs, for immediate loading, and at no time in the history of the company has the mill at Mansfield been out of logs. The loggers deliver three trains daily to the pond, aggregating all told about forty-five cars each day.

Camp No. 1 is about twelve miles from Mansfield, where live the loading crew and the train men interested in the woods operations.

Logging Road at Mansfield.
The logging road at Mansfield deserves a special department in this article, because it is one of the best equipped and most successfully run lines of logging railways in the southwest.

There is laid at present six miles of 56-pound steel, five miles of 52-pound steel and eight miles of 35-pound steel. There are employed in the manipulation of the road 31 men.

As all the locomotives are rod affairs, and as they are expected to travel as rapidly practically as if they were run over a trunk line, the grading, the ties and the laying out of this road through the rolling land of De Soto parish have been done as carefully and with as much engineering skill as if it had been expected to make the road a traffic line permanently. These locomotives consist of a 40-ton main line Baldwin, a 35-ton Pittsburg and a 35-ton Grant. The logging cars are 52 in number.

In service is a Fairbanks-Morse motor car of No. 15 type, which R. J. Wilson, the railroad superintendent and member of the logging firm of Kerr, Burgess & Wilson, uses in connection with his work.

The fifty-two logging cars have 30-inch wheels with 4-1/2x8-inch journals, are fitted with 10-foot bunks, have 60,000 capacity and are capable of carrying from 3,000 to 5,000 feet of short logs each, in wide, high loads. There are exceptional telephone facilities, as located along this road is a branch line of the Southwestern Telephone Company. The trains are manipulated by telephone.

The logs are dumped into a made pond at the mill, which covers fifteen acres and will hold not less than 2,000,000 feet of logs. This pond was made by damming a ravine, an embankment having been thrown up twelve feet high, forty feet thick at the base, with a crown of twenty feet in width. This pond is furnished with water by a supply from natural springs and from rains.

Saw Mill at Mansfield.
The saw mill at Mansfield stands in general direction east and west, about 400 feet from the Kansas City Southern railway track, one and one-half miles south of the Kansas City Southern railway depot.

This mill was built in 1905. It was begun March 3 and turned over first at 6:30 p.m., June 29, 1905. It is contained in a building 40x160 feet in area. The haul-up is in the west end and is 250 feet long.

The foundations of the building are of solid brick. There is a separate foundation under each machine on the saw floor.

In the construction of the building proper the framing of the underwork is 12x12. The first story is 16 feet, this being the highest type now used in saw mill construction. The next floor is ten feet in the clear and the framing is 10x10. On this floor, of course, is the saw mill proper. The top story is used for a filing room and is 40x40 feet in area.

The boiler and engine room, built of frame and galvanized iron, is located on the south side of the saw mill, with a fire wall between it and the saw mill building seventeen inches thick, running up to a height of 21 feet. The boiler room division of this room is 40x36 feet and contains two 72-inch by 18 feet Casey & Hedges boilers in marine settings. There are also two Filer & Stowell water feed pumps in the room with the boilers.

The boiler house and engine room should really be considered together, and if so considered the room is 40x60 feet in area. The engine is a Filer & Stowell rocking valve type affair, 24x30 inches. Sawdust is used for fuel and the furnaces are fed automatically. There is a reserve store room for sawdust storage, 16x30 feet in size. The boilers and the engine mentioned furnish and transmit the power to the saw mill, the trimmer, the edger, the haul-up chain, the transfer chain and the fire pump. There is a small 6x8 supplementary engine in the filing room so that the machinery there can be operated independent of the main engine. The smokestack is 60 inches in diameter by 92 feet in height.

On the saw floor is a Filer & Stowell band saw with 12-inch face and 8-foot wheel. The carriage is a 3-block affair and will cut up to 26 feet. There is on the saw floor a Filer & Stowell 60-inch 6-saw edger. The trimmer is also a Filer & Stowell, an 11-saw machine. The shotgun feed is a Filer & Stowell 12-lnch. The file room is fitted with M. Covel Manufacturing Company automatic machinery. This mill is now run twenty hours daily, Sundays excepted. It is shut down at 12 o’clock Saturday night and begins again at 6 o’clock Monday morning. This mill has produced in eleven hours 72,175 feet of inch boards, that being its banner run.

The Planing Mill at Mansfield.
The planing mill is situated 400 feet north of the saw mill, and stands north and south in general direction. It is 80x140 feet in area. The structure is built six feet off the ground in order to meet the requirements of the loading trams. The boilers are housed in a building south of the south end of the planing mill building in a frame affair covered with sheet iron. There is in this boiler house a brick shaving vault, 20x24x24 feet. One branch of the pipe which reaches from the top of the planer terminates at this vault, the other at the fire pit. The branch to the fire pit is 700 feet long and 27 inches in diameter. The branch of the short pipe to the vault is 20 inches in diameter. The cyclone blower in use was put in by the Shreveport Blow Pipe & Sheet Iron Works, Limited.

Between the boiler house and the planing mill proper is a brick fire wall which is 17 inches thick and 27 feet high. The boilers and engines are all in one room. The boilers are two in number, 18 inches by 72 feet, made by Casey & Hedges, in marine setting, with separate fires. The engine is a Filer & Stowell, 18x80 inches in size, and of the rocking valve typo. The house which contains this machinery is 38x60 foot.

The planing mill machinery consists of one 8x15 matcher, two 4x15 matchers, one 3x7 matcher, one 15-inch molder, one rip saw and one 7-inch molder, made by the Hall & Brown Woodworking Machine Company, of St. Louis; one 2-saw Hoyt edger; one W. B. Mershon resaw with a 5-foot wheel; one knife grinder and one double emery stand. There is a complete shop in connection with the planing mill, with all the complementary knife grinding machinery and the various tools for keeping the planing mill in order.

Handling Lumber at Mansfield.
The lumber from the saw mill is delivered to a chain sorter 140 feet long over all, which runs north from a point near the east end of the saw mill. A little further east is another chain sorter with two chains, of about the same length. All the common lumber is taken off the original 3-chain sorter on the left hand or west side of the sorter. This common lumber is put on "dollies" moved by hand and carried to yards and stacked. The dollies used on the yard for this purpose are thirty-eight in number.

The "B and better" up to 16 feet in length goes straight ahead on this first 3-chain affair; the 1-inch "B and better" up to 16 feet stays on original chains and is stacked direct by hand by two men. Then it goes into the dry kilns 75 feet farther north.

The "B and better," all thicknesses over 1 inch and all lengths of 16 feet, is thrown over on to the other set of transfer chains. This is done easily by a "hurry-up" chain. The long and thick "B and better" is transferred to the end of the chains, stacked on kiln ears and run to the dry kilns. Two men stack the lumber for the dry kilns.

The trams out to the yards start at an elevation of nine feet and run to a point, each one where that elevation permits them to strike the ground. The yard at Mansfield slopes rapidly from the back toward the front, where the planing mill, sheds etc. stand.

The dry kilns are of the Standard variety, consist of four rooms and are located 180 feet north of the saw mill.

Three of these rooms are 17x110 feet in area and the other is 21x110 feet. Crosswise piling is in vogue These rooms hold 300,000 feet of lumber and turn out 60,000 feet daily. The steam for the dry kilns is obtained at the planing mill.

About 200 feet northwest from the dry kilns are two sheds for rough lumber (or rather one shed with a small interval between), this structure being, all told, 63x250 feet in area, holding 1,500,000 feet. Sixty feet north of the rough shed is a shed for dressed lumber, 63x280 feet, which holds 1,500,000 feet of lumber.

There are about 5,000 feet of tram way in the yards and appropriate docks for the proper handling of cars, all of which are weighed in and out on a Buda (Ill.) Foundry & Scale Company scale of 150,000 capacity, 40 feet in length.

Mercantile End at Mansfield.
The store at Mansfield employs five people in its operation, which is in the interest of the employees of the company in the broadest and most particular sense.

The business of this store for 1906 amounted to over $135,000. The store carries largely a line of the most staple goods and is operated on as small a margin as is practicable for the carrying on of the business, this in the interest of the employees. There is a separate meat market next to the store where all kinds of Kansas City meats are sold.

Electric Light at Mansfield.
The electric light plant at Mansfield is located in the planing mill and the dynamo is a 30-kilowat machine. The engine is a 10x14 automatic, enclosed, self-oiling and of the Erie City Iron Works make, and has run a year and one-half without having to be adjusted in any particular.

The dynamo was made by the Triumph Electrical Company, of Cincinnati, Ohio, and runs altogether 350 to 400 16-candlepower lights and 9 arc lights.

Machine Shop at Mansfield.
The De Soto Land & Lumber Company is especially fortunate in that, located on the line of the Mansfield Railway & Transportation Company, not more than three-quarters of a mile from the plant of the De Soto Foundry & Machine Company, Limited, are a modern iron and brass foundry and a complete custom machine shop, where can be handled the manufacture or repair of the heaviest piece of locomotive or saw mill machinery.

Fire Protection at Mansfield.
The water supply at Mansfield is entirely adequate for all purposes needed. Besides the water in the pond there is a well 960 feet deep. South of the saw mill 600 to 700 feet in the possession of the company are four living springs which run the year round and have a capacity of 60,000 to 70,000 gallons a day. A 3-inch pipe is attached to the spring reservoir, connected with the saw mill boiler feed pumps, so that is also had in reserve. This water ordinarily is used only for drinking water for the employees, being admirably suited to that purpose.

Northwest of the mill, at a convenient distance, is an elevated tank which holds 49,850 gallons and is 72 feet high. North of the saw mill about 100 feet is a pump house made of galvanized iron, 16 feet square, which contains a 12x7x14 Gardner pump of 500 gallons a minute discharge. This pump is coupled with the pond, the tank and the deep well at the saw mill.

There are two feed water pumps made by the Filer & Stowell Company, each 6x4x6 inches in size, which are arranged to pump from the spring reservoir, deep well or log pond, and which can be used as auxiliary to the big fire pump just mentioned. In practice all the water is pumped from the big fire pump. The same mill pumps have steam connections from the planing mill boilers so that they could be utilized if the saw mill were cold and down. The steam from the big pump is furnished either from the saw or planing mill. In use at Mansfield are about 800 feet of 6-inch pipe, about 800 feet of 4-inch pipe, 200 feet of 2-inch pipe and probably 2,000 feet of 2-1/2 inch pipe.

In commission are about 800 feet of hose and 17 hydrants. There are thirty water barrels with sixty buckets. The company has the Newman system of electric clock alarm, furnished with fifteen stations, and employs one watchman to complement their work.

Miscellaneous Matters at Mansfield.
The little saw mill town of the De Soto Land & Lumber Company is more advantageously located than many metropolitan suburbs in regard to the comfort of the company’s employees. It is built upon high and rolling ground, perfect natural drainage is thus assured and the chances of fevers and the like are vastly minimized. Another attraction is the nearby town of Mansfield, a little city of 3,000 inhabitants, which, inasmuch as it was founded in 1859, is the abode of a cultured class of good citizens, with whom association is beneficial, and who have surrounded themselves with most of the comforts of civilization and good, clean living.

Mansfield, La., is the seat of the Mansfield Female College, the oldest and best known institution of learning for women in the southwest. For many years it was under the direct management of the Methodist Episcopal Church South but is now under the management of Dr. T. S. Sligh, an educator of great reputation. Young boys are also taught there. It is not often that the sons and daughters of saw mill operators have such exceptional advantages of higher education, right at home, as this institution affords the families drawn to Mansfield by the De Soto Land & Lumber Company. There are, besides this college, public schools of importance in Mansfield.

Besides all this a school has been established by the enterprise of the De Soto Land & Lumber Company and is in flourishing condition in the little saw mill town. This school is housed temporarily in a dwelling house, but a fine school building will soon be erected there by the lumber company.

Inasmuch as the saw mill community is situated so close to this well established Louisiana metropolis of Mansfield no mill physician is employed and the saw mill community has the choice of employing its own medical assistance from among the several well known practitioners who live in Mansfield proper.

The saw mill community is connected with the entire southwest by means of an office of the Southwestern Telephone Company located in the company office.

Several well known church denominations have places of worship and regular services in the town of Mansfield. It is doubtful if many saw mill communities in the southwest have greater advantages in a social way than have the employees of the De Soto Land & Lumber Company.

The Black Lake Lumber Company, at Campti, La., sixty-one miles from Shreveport and sixty-two miles from Alexandria, on the main line of the Louisiana Railway & Navigation Company, is the newest fully installed lumber manufacturing business of these interests. The construction and arrangement of the plant at Campti, taken in connection with the amount of timber behind the proposition, the location of the plant and its installation, and the character of its management, make this a model of its kind, and as such it will be referred to and exploited in the article which follows.

The reader will spend a profitable quarter of an hour in perusing that which is to follow, remembering that less than a year ago the mill and the town site of the Black Lake Lumber Company were an old cotton field.

The founding of the Black Lake Lumber Company is especially interesting because it marks the joining of hands of two great lumbering and financial forces in this section, the Whited & Wheless interests and the Frost interests. These two lines of effort in yellow pine lumber manufacturing have worked along almost side by side amicably and without friction for many years, and the amalgamation of the personality of such men as H. H. Wheless, E. A. Frost, F. T. Whited, E. W. Frost and G. S. Prestridge in one business effort should guarantee the building up of a business out of the ordinary.

George S. Prestridge has from the very first been the commandant of the forces in this undertaking.

In the beginning the officials of the Louisiana Railway & Navigation Company suggested to E. A. Frost that a saw mill proposition existed at Campti which it would be profitable to investigate. They desired that the Frost interests, on account of their high reputation, should manage a business on their road. This suggestion planted the seed. Mr. Frost at once interested Mr. Whited, Mr. Wheless, Mr. Prestridge and W. R. McCrocklin in the venture and Mr. Whited and Mr. McCrocklin, each representing the two general interests to be joined in the proposition, together took a preliminary Cruise through the timber, were favorably impressed and wired Mr. Prestridge at Tyler, Tex., to meet them at Campti to look further into the proposition. After these three experts had spent a few more days in the woods it was decided that the deal was a good one.

March 12, 1906, the Black Lake Lumber Company was organized with an authorized capital stock of $1,000,000, $600,000 paid up, domiciled in Caddo parish; E. A. Frost, president; F. T. Whited, vice president; H. H. Wheless, secretary; George S. Prestridge, treasurer and general manager.

At that time S. B. Hicks owned a mill at Grappes Bluff, La., on the line of the Louisiana Railway & Navigation Company, within six miles of Campti, between Campti and Shreveport. This mill had a capacity of 50,000 feet a day and behind that proposition, also owned by Mr. Hicks, was 27,000,000 feet of standing shortleaf yellow pine timber. This mill and this timber were bought by the Black Lake Lumber Company.

March 15, 1906, George S. Prestridge took charge at Grappes Bluff and began to formulate plans to build a mill at Campti.

The beautiful site for the building of the mill of the Black Lake Lumber Company operation of the erection of the town, store, offices, etc., was found about a mile and a half from the interesting old Red river town of Campti in the old cotton field before referred to, and on May 10, 1906, ground was broken for the erection of the plant which is explained in an illustrative way in this article and in this text.

November 9, 1906, this mill made its first lumber, and perfect were the plans of the Black Lake Lumber Company in the beginning that it certainly would have been making lumber at this mill not later than September 9 had the machinery which it purchased been furnished reasonably soon. But in the midst of all the prosperity of those times there of course must be a little drab lining to the silver cloud, and this lining to the the Black Lake people was "delay in shipping."

May 30, 1906, the Hicks saw mill at Grappes Bluff was destroyed by fire. Logs are yet being taken off the Hicks purchase to log the ill at Campti and are being brough in to Campti by the Black Lake logging road to Grappes Bluff and hauled over the lines of the Louisiana Railway & Transportation Company, at Grappes Bluff, to the pond of the Black Lake Lumber Company at Campti.

The timber possessions of the Black Lake Lumber Company are in Red River and Natchitoches parishes, Louisiana, and the mill site a mile and a half from Campti is located in section 33 township 11, range 7, adjoining the incorporated town of Campti, and Natchitoches parish.

This mill site is ideal in many ways. It has natural drainage; it is high and dry and well watered. In fact it is contiguous by pipe line to the La Virginia Springs, which are so famous in northern Louisiana for the healing qualities of their waters, a source of supply to many mills along the Louisiana Railway & Navigation Company road for pure and wholesome drinking water.

There have been erected besides the handsome offices a separate doctor's office and drug store combined, and a general store with warehouse and butcher shop attached, which is probably the largest in the parish and which means much to the general population in that locality.

A Masonic lodge is soon to be instituted and there is to be erected in the immediate future a combination church, school and lodge room.

A physician, a sketch of whoso life and acquirements appears elsewhere in this article, is in the exclusive employ of the Black Lake Lumber Company.

Chief in attraction of the things which look to the comfort and well being of the people, it must be mentioned that there is soon to be erected a magnificent parish high school, on a prominent hill half way between the town of Campti and the mill site of the Black Lake Lumber Company. This school will have several teachers and will have a curriculum comparing favorably with that of the high schools of the state.

Campti, the town, has the benefit of the Western Union Telegraph and Wells, Fargo express, and the Black Lake Lumber Company employs a responsible courier whose business it is to meet all trains, convey all express and mail matter between the saw mill town of the Black Lake Lumber Company and the ancient and picturesque village of Campti, located on the banks of the Red River.

A very complete and well regulated hotel, the Lake house, has been built and installed by the Black Lake Lumber Company near the mill site at Campti, the main part of which is [missing text] feet in area, with an "L" 20x30 feet, all two stories in height, with altogether thirty-two rooms. It is fitted with ranges, heating stoves, grates, electric lighted, has baths and in fact is most modern in improvements, and the building is substantially erected on enduring brick piers.

Comfortable homes for both white and negro employees, each in a separate location and divergent enough to meet the requirements for all concerned, have been erected and installed and will be kept up during all the mill operations at this point. The rents range from $4 to $10 a month. Nearly all the houses of the white people are furnished with electric light and running water.

Just how old Campti, La., is no white resident seems to know and the many old negroes cannot even try to guess. Whether or not it was named for a dead Indian or a live Frenchman will not be stated, but it is a quaint old place with rambling, old time houses covered with clapboards, and in the summer time half hidden in vines of vivid green, redolent with perfume and gay with flowers.

The Red River boats touch at Campti and so crooked is the Red river in this section that a boat, announced by its hoarse whistle, often seems to have stranded in the river somewhere and to be throwing out distress signals, when, as a matter of fact, it is going merrily on is red and crooked way, taking on and discharging passengers and freight at its various landings, frequently keeping within hearing for as long a time as twenty-four hours.

Woods Operations at Campti.
The timber proposition at Campti is shortleaf and longleaf yellow pine and a sprinkling of hardwoods. The original purchase of pine timber was in the neighborhood of 200,000,000 feet. That, of course, has been added to, and will be further increased, during the operations.

The logs at Campti are brought in over the company railroad by the Prestridge-Buchanan Logging Company, a well known firm of logging contractors who just now have headquarters and a little store at Grappes Bluff, inasmuch as they are still bringing in the Hicks purchase of logs.

The corral of the logging company is about eight miles from Grappes Bluff, this being the "front" of its operations at present. The employees live at Grappes Bluff and a few miles out on the logging road.

These contractors use, in securing their logs, eighty head of oxen, twenty mules, ten 8-wheel wagons, two log carts, one road wagon, and have for the use of their men twenty-six portable houses. There is in service and use by these contractors one "American" log loader which is doing splendid work.

Most of the stables, sheds, etc. for the stock are at the corral at the end of the line, at which place lives the feeder, who takes care of them. Water is hauled in a tank car, for the men and the stock as well, from a well at Grappes Bluff, 188 feet deep, from which it is taken by an air compressor.

The policy of the Black Lake Lumber Company in its logging operations is to cut and carry into the mill all of its small logs in long lengths. It is the belief of the management that many logs are unavoidably left in the woods as too small to be of any service when the smaller trees are cut into lengths in the woods.

The logging company has to do only with the building of the track and loading the logs on the ear, The lumber company furnishes the cars, rolling stock, rails and log handling, in train.

The Prestridge-Buchanan Logging Company is a partnership and not an incorporation as the name suggests, and consists of J. H. Buchanan, of Campti, actively in the management; J. W. Prestridge, of Lufkin, Tex., E. D. Smith, who just now looks after the commissary and does the bookkeeping for the company at Grappes Bluff, and others not actively connected,

The logging railroad of the Black Lake Lumber Company now consists of about eight miles of steel, all 45-pound and laid very substantially. Its locomotives are two 48-ton Baldwins and one 24-ton Shay.

Logging will yet be done on the Hicks purchase for about six months. In the meantime track will be laid directly out from the saw mill at Campti into another section, and already one mile of that has been laid and probably two or three miles graded.

The log pond at the mill is a made affair which will hold a half million feet of logs. It has a depth over all of five feet and is fed by rains and a deep well. The logs are handled in the usual manner.

The Campti Logging Road.
Reference was made in the woods division of this article to the now logging road at Campti, but this pertained only to the immediate logging operations. The car equipment of the Black Lake Lumber Company consists of forty-one logging cars and one feed car, two speeders and four hand cars.

In time will be taken up the steel that is now used in the Hicks purchase and laid into the main holdings of the company, north of Campti. A considerable distance of this road has already been graded and will all be ready for locomotives when the time comes for the use of that timber. It is not known what the intention of the Black Lake Lumber Company may be in the matter of railroad building, but the abstract fact is that this company is very advantageously situated in that but few miles would have to be built to connect its line with the Louisiana & Northwest railroad, which runs south from McNeil, Ark., to Natchitoches, La., and is known as the "Beardsley" line; also it would be an easy matter to build a line to Goldonna, where a junction might be effected with the Louisiana & Arkansas railway without going out of the way or deflecting from the Black Lake timber.

The Saw Mill at Campti.
The saw mill of the Black Lake Lumber Company, at Campti, La., is everything that all the other mills of these interests are, and just a little bit more than many, in that it is fitted with a complete high class lath mill.

The mill building stands east and west in its general direction on the west side of the pond and is a two and a half story building, 40x170 feet in area, exclusive of the lath mill, which is in an addition on the south side of the mill, flush with the west end. The foundation is of concrete and brick piers. The framing of the lower floors is 14x14 inches. The first story is 14 feet in the clear. The framing of the second story is 12x12 inches. The lath mill addition referred to is 18x40 feet in area. The filing room, located in the half story of the building, is 28x40 feet in area.

The building is covered by corrugated iron, furnished by Woodward, Wight & Co., of New Orleans, La. In fact it may be remarked here parenthetically that, all and severally, the buildings of the Black Lake Lumber Company are covered with this corrugated iron. It has been made one of the principles of construction at Campti. The boiler house, on the south side of the plant, is 30x33 feet in area, built entirely of concrete. This entire building, the combined boiler house and engine room -- the engine room being 20x38 feet -- is built of concrete, 6 inches thick, with a pilaster every 14 feet which measures 16x16 inches. This pilaster is reinforced with 12-1/2-inch iron rods. From pilaster to pilaster is a lattice-work of one-half inch iron which runs through the center of the wall. About this most solid set of iron bones the concrete body was poured into a mold formed by planking on the outside.

This description of the concrete work will stand for the concrete work elsewhere in the plant, to which reference will be made. It is spoken of here because this is the first time a concrete building has been reached in this description.

The roof of both the boiler house and the engine room is of corrugated iron, reinforced by steel trusses. The boilers are two in number, made by the Casey & Hedges Manufacturing Company, of Chattanooga, Tenn., each 18 feet long and 72 inches in diameter, in marine settings with Dutch ovens, and are used exclusively for the saw mill.

There is in this boiler room an Ingersoll-Sargent Drill Company air compressor, made in New York, N. Y., used for pumping the two deep wells located a little farther south.

In this boiler room is also an F. M. Prescott Steam Pump Company pump, for boiler feed purposes. The boilers are fed exclusively by sawdust, with endless chain working automatically. There is ample space for sawdust on the second floor and on the bottom of the floor of this boiler house.

In the engine room is a Reynolds-Corliss heavy duty Allis-Chalmers 22x42 inch engine. There is also a coil heater for heating the exhaust steam.

The entire mill is run by one line shaft 170 feet long. The power is applied in the middle. This line shaft is 5-7/16 inches in the middle, tapering to 3-7/16 inches at either end. The "nigger" was built by the Lufkin Foundry & Machine Company. The steam trip and all the various and sundry log handling devices are also by the Lufkin Foundry & Machine Company. These include the contrivance with its iron teeth which bites into the logs and holds them steady while the drag saw cuts them into proper lengths, this first operation, of course, being done on the saw floor.

On the saw floor of the mill is a Filer & Stowell right hand band -- an 8-foot mill with a 14-inch saw, furnished with a 3-block Allis-Chalmers carriage with a shotgun 12-inch feed made by the Lufkin Foundry & Machine Company.

The heavy Allis-Chalmers 72-inch No. 2, 6-saw edger runs saws 24 inches in diameter.

The left hand trimmer is a 13-saw undercut automatic affair suitable for 24-inch saws, handled by overhead levers, manipulated by one man standing on a platform directly over the trimmer.

Opposite the back table of the edger is a 5-saw 24-foot slab slasher.

All of the refuse is dropped into a conveyor inside of the lath mill room, and the stuff for making lath can be picked up conveniently and laid upon the lath tables.

The lath mill consists of a complete mill with bolter, trimmer, bundler and all accessories for producing 30,000 lath daily.

The file room in the half story at the top contains a No. 90 saw-shaping machine for 14-inch right hand band saws; one stretcher for 14-inch saws with punch and shear attachment; one lap grinder; one brazing machine for 14-inch saws; one 16-foot filing vice and one forge, all by the M. Covel Manufacturing Company; one 5x12x14 anvil; one leveling block 3x14x48 inches; one White band saw swage; one shaper; one gummer; one circular saw sharpener; one 6x6 inch vertical engine; one circular saw for slasher and trimmer saws and especially for lath saws.

The offal, after the lath stock is taken out and all of it is used for fuel that is needed, is carried out center north of the mill 140 feet to a Muskegon Boiler Works brick lined burner, 20 feet in diameter and 90 feet high over all, bricked up 65 feet.

The general smokestack of the boilers is 112 feet high, 50 inches in diameter, with a ladder attachment.

There is a butting saw in the back of the mill for trimming timbers etc.

The saw mill is already cutting an average of 60,000 feet of lumber daily. Its banner run thus far has been 66,000 feet.

The Dry Kilns at Campti
The dry kilns are located 200 feet south of the saw mill and consist of five rooms, each 20x121 feet in area. These kilns will hold 400,000 feet of lumber and turn out 90,000 feet of dry lumber daily. They are of the National type.

There are about five miles of piping in those five kilns and they are built of concrete with 6-inch walls, with the exception of pilasters every eight feet, which are fourteen inches square each.

This dry kiln building is erected entirely without the use of wood. Even the roof is reenforced concrete supported by 10-inch steel I-beams and the rest of the proposition is coal-tar paper and gravel. They are almost as indestructible as a retort. The steam pipes are so arranged that live steam could be turned right on to the fire should a blaze occur.

The lumber is stacked by hand at the end of the sorting chain and is transferred to the front of the kiln and goes into the kiln endwise.

The Planing Mill at Campti.
The planing mill stands north and south in general direction, just about south in direction from the east line of the log pond, and covers an area of 82x168 feet. The boilers are housed in a concrete building 50x60 feet in area, are three in number, built by the Casey & Hedges Manufacturing Company, Chattanooga, Tenn., and are high pressure type, marine setting, 72 inches in diameter and each 18 feet long. These boilers are used to furnish not only the steam for the planing mill but for the dry kilns as well.

The fuel supply of sawdust is fed to these boilers automatically. Situated in a depression in the floor of this boiler house is a hot water pump which receives the condensed water from the kilns and puts it back into the boiler.

This boiler house is also the general engine room of this part of the plant. On a great concrete and brick base, elevated above the level of the boiler floor, is a Houston, Stanwood & Gamble engine, heavy duty type, 20x28 inches, which runs the planing mill; and on a little lower level -- likewise on secure foundation's an Erie City Iron Works high speed engine, 12x16 inches in size, with which the dynamo of the electric light plant is run.

The shaving room, 20x32x22 feet, will hold enough shavings to last the plant a week. The refuse or oversupply is blown through a pipe thirty inches in diameter 600 feet to the southwest by a 72-inch Sturtevant fan. This equipment was manufactured and installed by the Shreveport Blow Pipe & Sheet Iron Works, Limited, of Shreveport, La.

The walls of the boiler house are six inches thick, all of concrete, of construction similar to the other concrete buildings described, and the roof is of corrugated iron steel-trussed.

The line shaft of the planing mill is 180 feet long and the machines now installed are two 18-inch matchers, three 15-inch matchers, one 11-inch matcher, two 12-inch matchers, one 12-inch molder, one rip-saw and one band resaw, furnished by the Hall & Brown Woodworking Machine Company, of St. Louis, Mo.; one S. A. Woods molder, one E. & B. Holmes edger, and two 15-inch Berlin Machine Works high speed flooring machines.

Handling Lumber at Campti.
The lumber at Campti falls to two tables for sorting purposes. All the lumber is graded at the tail of the mill where it leaves the trimmer. The 16-foot and short "B and better" goes straight away on one of the transfer affairs. All the common lumber is taken from the first set of chains, put on "dollies" and taken to the yards. All the clear 16-feet and under is moved by the first set of chains to a point about 100 feet from the mill. The good lumber over 16 feet is placed on a quick roll and shunted on to the other sorter, which runs in the same direction as the first sorter mentioned, where it is handled in proper shape and made up for the dry kiln.

The lumber is taken on thirty buggies to the yards, where is piling ground for 10,000,000 feet of lumber.

There is the usual scheme of piling "down and up" from tramways.

The foundations are made of 6x8, piled transversely in a sort of crib, just the width and length of the lumber which is to be piled thereon. All trams are 16 feet in width.

The rough lumber sheds are two in number, stand in east and west direction, parallel with the saw mill, and are each 58x225 feet in area and will hold, all told, 2,000,000 feet.

The two dressed sheds are located at the extreme southern side of the plant, running north and south in general direction, one of these being 250x58 feet, a double affair; the other, single, 20x250 feet, the room for dressed lumber being 1,500,000 feet.

A runway or tram crosses back over east, running past the southern ends of these two dressed lumber sheds, and connects with a tram 20 feet wide which extends at least 800 feet to the north, passing directly east of the long side of the planing mill. This is the loading dock and will accommodate for loading twenty-five cars at a time.

There is on hand at Campti at the present time in the neighborhood of 2,500,000 feet, and it is the plan of the management to carry about 6,000,000 feet of stock, this being always in shipping dry condition.

The first shipment was made from Campti January 4, 1907, being a carload, 12,369 feet of piece stuff, and was shipped in Texas & Pacific car No. 2576 to William Cameron & Co., at Fort Worth, Tex.

Mercantile End at Campti.
The Black Lake Lumber Company undoubtedly maintains the largest general store in its parish, and it is a store, also, that is admirably and intelligently kept.

The main building in which the merchandising is done is 36x104 fet in area. An extension of this building 36x66 feet has been erected since the first building was put up, to use for warehouse purposes. Both of these buildings are well heated in the winter months, are fitted with electric fans for the summer and are electric lighted.

Departments of drygoods, shoes, groceries, furniture, furnishing goods, notions etc. are maintained, and there is also, as a particular feature of this business, a butcher shop, fitted with cold storage compartments.

B. C. Peyton, an experienced man, whose biography is printed elsewhere, is in charge of the merchandising, assisted in the drygoods department by W. L. Harwood, in the shoes by P. W. Whatley, in the groceries by Walter Mozingo and in the butcher shop by Henry Ward.

Electric Lights at Campti.
The electric light plant was installed by Spranley & Reed, of New Orleans, and is situated both as to its power and its machinery in the planing mill boiler house.

The dynamo is of 60-kilowatt, of the Bullock type, of 240 volts, capable of producing electricity sufficient to run 1,000 16-candle power lamps. The dynamo is run by a medium speed side crank engine, 12x16 inches in size. Installed at this plant are 427 16-candle power lights and 14 arc lights, and all the principal buildings in the Black Lake Lumber Company settlement are electric lighted.

On the lower floor of the mill the wiring is in steel conduits; steel cabinets are furnished for the mill and steel troughs for the carriage, edger and sorter.

Important Miscellanies at Campti.
There has been constructed by the Black Lake Lumber Company a saw mill that is well nigh indestructible. No other plant has recently been erected anywhere that has been so favored as has this one in the matter of the use of concrete in the construction of not only the foundations but also the buildings. Notably is this true of the boiler houses and the dry kilns.

The water supply is very superior. South of the saw mill boiler house is a well 176 feet dep, 6 inches in diameter, which produces 60,000 gallons each twenty-four hours, and not far away is another well of similar character 140 feet deep, which produces a like amount of water.

The water from these two wells is forced into a concrete lined tank 18x10, and the water is elevated from the ground tank to an elevated tank 75 feet high, which holds 30,000 gallons. The tub of this tank is of cypress and the tower is of steel. After both of these tanks are full the overflow goes into the log pond. There is at least two miles of water pipe laid in the vicinity of all buildings, including the company houses, and the pipe is of standard sizes, from 8-inch to 2-1/2 inch. Eighty water barrels are maintained with full complement of buckets, and over fifty hydrants are available for use in case of fire. The fire pump is a Knowles 14x7-1/4x12 and there is in service a Newman watchman’s clock, with nine stations and two watchmen.

A machine shop 30x60 feet in area has been erected just east of the saw mill and contains a complete blacksmithing outfit and all sorts of facilities for car building and general repair of those things most liable to need repair in a lumber manufacturing concern.

The Black Lake Lumber Company has access to long distance telephone through the town of Campti.

The Star & Crescent Lumber Company, recently organized as a Louisiana corporation with a permit to do business in Texas, is the youngest child in the Frost-Trigg lumber family. It is not as small and unassuming as the meager accounts of its organization might indicate, but it is so new that this is the first printed line of news about it that has appeared in a lumber trade newspaper. In fact it has come into being since was begun the gathering of material for this article on the Frost-Trigg lumber interests.

The Star & Crescent Lumber Company received its charter February 1, 1907, with an authorized capital stock of $600,000, the officers being E. A. Frost, president; H. H. Wheless, vice president; G. S. Prestridge, second vice president; R. D. Collins, secretary, and F. T. Whited, treasurer. These parties together with George A. Kelley and W. J. Townsend, of Lufkin, Tex., compose the board of directors.

The Star & Crescent Lumber Company has large timber holdings in Texas and in the course of the next twelve months will probably erect an up-to-date band mill thereon.

No story of a great commercial enterprise can be written without considering the men who make that enterprise possible. No story of purely lumber manufacturing business was ever printed where the management was willing to give to its departmental heads and to its rank and file as much credit for its success as has the management of the Frost-Trigg interests.

These things being true, the reader must certainly be curious to know a little bit about a few of the officers who are all the while on the firing line of this commercial army, and therefore will follow, briefly told, short sketches of nearly one hundred people intimately related to the Frost-Trigg interests, as officers or as heads of departments.

T. M. Dean.
T. M. Dean, the vice president of the Red River Lumber Company, of Frostville, Ark., was born in Columbia county, Arkansas, fifty-eight years ago. In that county he resided until he was 26 years old, working on a farm. He received his education in the common schools and spent one year at the Gordon Institute, a private academy near Lisbon, Union county, Arkansas. At the age of 34 he became a resident of Miller county, Arkansas, and stayed there until he was 45 years of age.

In 1882 he began hauling lumber and shortly after started to work and ship lumber for E. W. Frost & Co., then at Genoa, Ark.

He went from Genoa to Kelly with the Frost interests and from there to Frostville. He has been practically an employee of the Frost interests since 1882 and 1883. He has been a stockholder in the Red River Lumber Company for many years and has been vice president of that business for eight years.

Thomas Byrnes.
Thomas Byrnes, secretary of the De Soto Land & Lumber Company, was born in County Kilkenny, Ireland, September 17, 1846, and when 4 years old migrated with his family to America, settling in Cambria county, Pennsylvania. As a lad he worked on the farm and went to school and ultimately was graduated at the Iron City Commercial College, in Pittsburg, Pa., in his nineteenth year.

He worked for various institutions as a bookkeeper and for a time was in business for himself. Coming south in 1888 to visit friends at Jefferson, Tex., he was induced to enter the office end of the then Jefferson Lumber Company. He became treasurer of that institution and remained until its business was closed out, when he joined the Bemis Lumber Company at its organization.

In September, 1895, Mr. Byrnes became general bookkeeper of the Fernwood Lumber Company at Fernwood, Miss. In September, 1898, he resigned his position with the Fernwood people and took charge of the office of the Pine Woods Lumber Company, Spring Hill, La., remaining there until May 1, 1905, when he resigned and became a charter member of the De Soto Land & Lumber Company.

George H. Byrnes.
George H. Byrnes, treasurer of the De Soto Land & Lumber Company, was born in Pittsburg, Pa., May 8, 1878. During school vacations he worked for the Jefferson Lumber Company. In 1892 he began as an office boy with the J. H. Bemis Lumber Company at Texarkana, Ark., and later worked for the Bemis Lumber Company. In 1896 he worked in the store of the Fernwood Lumber Company at Fernwood, Miss. In 1898 he enlisted with Company H, First Mississippi volunteer regulars, for the Spanish war, and served until December, 1899.

After leaving the army he went to St. Louis to school for four months; worked for J. F. Giles & Co. as stenographer and bookkeeper; in January, 1902, went with the Shreveport Blow Pipe & Sheet Iron Works, Limited, as secretary and treasurer. In January, 1905, he took part in the organization of the De Soto Land & Lumber Company, becoming its treasurer.

F. W. Scott.
F. W. Scott, secretary and treasurer of the Union Saw Mill Company, is a native of Virginia and was educated at the military academy, West Point, that state. In his eighteenth year he was employed by the St. Louis Southwestern Railway Company at St. Louis, Mo., and was with that company in St. Louis and at Tyler, Tex., until 1901, when he became secretary and treasurer of the Louisiana Railway Company when that road was operated by the Lufkin Land & Lumber Company. He joined the forces of the Union Saw Mill Company in October, 1903, and was made treasurer in February, 1904, and in January, 1905, was also made secretary, a position the duties of which Mr. Scott seems to be admirably qualified to discharge.

R. T. Moore.
R. T. Moore, manager of the mercantile department of the De Soto Land & Lumber Company and one of the company's largest stockholders, was born in Caddo parish, Louisiana, in March, 1875. In his thirteenth year he raised an eight bale cotton crop and upon its proceeds took a course in Draughon’s Business College at Texarkana, Ark. After four years' service as bookkeeper Mr. Moore went into the grocery business, and later into the shoe business, forming the Moore-High Shoe Company, of Texarkana, in which he still holds a large active interest. Three years later, in 1899, he went with the Sabine Lumber Company at Zwolle, La., managing the store and acting as secretary. After three and a half years he sold his interest in the Sabine Lumber Company. He took charge of the mercantile business of the De Soto Land & Lumber Company in September, 1905.

A. J. Molt.
A. J. Molt, secretary of the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company, of St. Louis, was born in St. Louis. When 14 years old, after some experience as an errand boy, young Molt took a full commercial course at the Southwestern Business College of St. Louis. He began work for the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company as stenographer in February, 1899, and has since been in the employ of that company. He was elected secretary of the company January 9, 1906.

Henry W. Wagon.
Henry W. Wagon, director and treasurer of the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company, assistant secretary and treasurer of the Union Saw Mill Company and assistant secretary and treasurer of the Louisiana & Pine Bluff Railway Company, was born at Maidstone, County Kent, England, in November, 1866, and was educated at the commercial academy in that town.

In his earlier business years in England Mr. Wagon was largely interested in various important capacities in paper mills, and in 1897 took over the management of the Dominion Pulp Company's plant at Chatham, N. B., Canada. He returned to England in 1901 for the purpose of engaging in business for himself, but decided afterward to return to America, and joined the forces of the E. C. Robinson Lumber Company, of St. Louis, Mo. He afterward spent twelve months with another lumber company in Arkansas, and returned to St. Louis in January, 1901, to take a position with the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company.

William N. Bloomfield.
William N. Bloomfield, traffic manager of the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company, was born in St. Louis in 1872, received his education in the public schools of that city and entered the railway business in 1886. He followed that until his enlistment in the Second United Cavalry for the Spanish war, where he served until peace was declared, receiving an honorable discharge. He then reengaged in his old occupation and followed that until March, 1900, when he assumed his present position.

John F. Schnieders.
John F. Schnieders, general sales agent of the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company, was born in St. Louis in 1882 and attended the St. Louis preparatory school from 1889 to 1895; the St. Louis university 1895 to 1899, and the Hayward Business College in 1899.

Mr. Schnieders began with the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company in 1900 as a stenographer, and was invoice clerk from early in 1901 until the latter part of 1902. He was with one of the Frost-Trigg mills for a while and was then put on the road by the Frost-Trigg company as traveling salesman, succeeding to the position of general sales agent August 1,1904.

R.A. Meyer.
R. A. Meyer has recently been made general sales agent of the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company at Shreveport, La., the culmination of several years of faithful service with that institution.

He was born in Ohio in 1864 and went to Colorado in 1883 and in 1887 worked in a lumber yard in Palisade, Neb., for J. T. Bullard. Mr. Meyer came south in 1902, working at different mills from loading cars to shipping lumber. He went to Oklahoma in 1896 to run a retail yard at McLoud for Davidson & Case. From 1900 until his recent appointment Mr. Meyer had been the alert and wideawake resident Oklahoma representative of the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company.

R. J. Wilson.
R. J. Wilson is superintendent of the logging road of the De Soto Land & Lumber Company and the Mansfield Railway & Transportation Company, and managing partner of the logging firm of Kerr, Burgess Wilson. He was born in Hope, Ark., August 23, 1869.

Mr. Wilson began work in the woods with E. W. Frost & Co. at Genoa, Ark., and worked there until the mill cut out, and was set at all sorts of things. In 1895 he went to the Red River Lumber Company as superintendent of timber cutting, and after three years at Frostville, Ark., contracted to log that mill and ran its railroad. He remained there until the De Soto Land & Lumber Company was started, in 1905, when he was one of the first men to come on the scene at Mansfield. He built the very superior railroad which the company owns.

E. H. Payne.
E. H. Payne, secretary and treasurer of the Mansfield Railway & Transportation Company, was born in Vernon county, Missouri, August 16, 1869. When he was 18 years old he began to keep books for a railroad contractor, afterward going into contracting personally. Later he did surveying and after that was auditor and treasurer of the Eastern Texas railroad, later general manager of the Texas-Southwestern railroad, and from that came to his present position November 4, 1905.

H. M. Evans.
H. M. Evans, conductor of the Mansfield Railway & Transportation Company’s line, was born at Walnut Hills, Ark., June 14, 1883. He went to work in lumberland in his nineteenth year, working with the loading crew of the S. H. Bolinger Lumber Company at Bolinger, La. Later he learned to run a locomotive, and after his first experience worked as engineer for the Antrim Lumber Company and other lumber companies until he came to his present position four months ago.

William J. Frost.
William J. Frost, engineer on the Mansfield Railway & Transportation Company locomotive, is a native of Miller county, Arkansas. He worked in his father’s saw mill near Texarkana and entered public work at Stamps, Ark. After leaving Stamps in 1899 he was with the Lufkin Land & Lumber Company as engineer and later months with the St. Louis Southwestern railway, going to Mansfield August 1, 1905.

J. W. Frost.
J. W. Frost, the saw mill foreman of the Red River Lumber Company at Frostville, Ark., was born April 17, 1880. In 1895 the H. C. McDaniel Lumber Company built a saw mill near his father’s farm and there young Frost had his first experience in saw mill work, working at different places about the mill and in the woods. When he left there he had been employed as a clerk in the commissary.

Mr. Frost began work for the Red River Lumber Company May 16, 1901, and has been with the company practically ever since.

George F. Mauldin.
George F. Mauldin, planing mill foreman for the Red River Lumber Company, was born near Hope, Ark., in 1875 and lived on a farm until 1890. His work in the lumber world has been with G. M. & V. M. Davis at Lumber, Ark.; W. M. Johnson at Tremont, La.; the Antrim Lumber Company at Antrim, La.; Burton-Lingo Company at Fort Worth, Tex., and his present employers, with whom he has. been since May, 1900.

J. R. Allen.
J. R. Allen, of Allen & Easley, log contractors, engaged in logging the mill of tho Red River Lumber Company, was born in Bossier parish, Louisiana, October 24, 1861. Since he was 21 years of age he has been engaged in saw milling, logging and farming. In 1899 he went into a logging contract at Neame, La., but sold his contract in November of that year, and the same month entered into a contract with the Red River Lumber Company and has remained with it ever since.

T. F. Philyaw.
T. F. Philyaw, yard foreman of the Red River Lumber Company, has been associated with the Frost interests twenty-four years, having worked as yard foreman as far back as the Genoa days. Mr. Philyaw was born July 18, 1852, at Mooringsport, La. In 1883 he went to work in the lumber business with E. W. Frost, in which interest he has remained continuously all the intervening years.

C. W. McKelvey.
C. W. McKelvey, shipping clerk of the Red River Lumber Company, was born near Fredericktown, Mo., in 1875. In 1898 he came to Arkansas and secured employment with the Red River Lumber Company, first as a grader, and later became assistant shipping clerk. He left the Red River people for a little while and was with the Antrim Lumber Company as shipping clerk, but returned to the Red River Lumber Company, with which he has since been in his present position.

George Stallmann.
George Stallmann, saw filer for the Red River Lumber Company, was born in Franklin county, Indiana, in 1849. He learned the carpenter’s trade and worked at that until he was 25 years old. In 1890 he came to Frostville, Ark., and began as a carpenter; in 1895 he became a helper in the filing room and from that an expert saw filer, continuing in that work until the present time.

James McKinley.
James McKinley, sawyer for the Red River Lumber Company, was born in Arkansas in 1881. He began work at the saw mill of the Red River Lumber Company in 1900. After the burning of the first mill at Frostville Mr. McKinley went with the Antrim Lumber Company and remained with that concern until August, 1904, after which date he returned to Frostville, where ever since he has remained as sawyer.

E. E. Williams.
E. E. Williams, manager of the company store for the Red River Lumber Company, was born in Arkansas in 1871, and with his parents in 1886 moved to Texarkana, Tex., where he received a common school education and worked in a drug store from 1891 to 1893. He took a business course in the Interstate College at Texarkana in 1894 and became bookkeeper and telegraph operator for the Western Union Telegraph Company at Texarkana September 1, 1894. He resigned that work in February, 1896, to fill a position with the Red River Lumber Company of Frostville. He was made manager of its mercantile department in 1900.

Dr. L. F. Magee.
Dr. L. F. Magee, company physician at Frostville, was born in Arkansas in 1873. He began the study of medicine in 1900, finishing at the Memphis Hospital Medical College in 1903. November 1, 1904, he came to Frostville, Ark., as physician for the Red River Lumber Company. In April, 1905, Dr. Magee was elected to the office of mayor of the town of Frostville, which position he still holds.

J. F. Miller.
J. F. Miller, general carpenter of the Red River Lumber Company, was born in Ohio in 1854. He came south in 1891, was employed four years with the Kearney Lumber Company at Kearney, Ark.; by the Freeman Lumber Company five years; and for a while by the Antrim Lumber Company, and came to the Red River Lumber Company four and a half years ago.

O. E. Gardner.
O. E. Gardner, bookkeeper lor the Red River Lumber Company, was born in 1882 in Bossier parish, Louisiana. His first work was with S. H. Bolinger & Co., at Bolinger, La., where be remained until some time in 1901. After this be attended the high school at Plain Dealing, La., following this with a commercial course in Shreveport, La. January 1, 1905, be assumed his present position.

Charles Durant
Charles Durant, assistant store manager of the Noble Lumber Company, was born in Paris, France, in 1860, from whence he went to Now York in 1865 and from there to Now Orleans in 1878. After traveling through Mexico and the United States he went to Texarkana, Ark., in 1888, obtained a position with E. W. Frost Co. at Genoa, Ark., as log sealer, was transferred to the commissary and remained there until 1898.

For ten years after this he was variously engaged; as store manager for six years at Stamps, Ark., for the Bodcaw Lumber Company; a year in Texarkana in the grocery business for himself; again in business for himself in Hot Springs; as store manager for the Livingston Lumber Company at Buck, Tex., assuming the position be now holds January 1, 1906.

Thomas E. Trigg.
Thomas E. Trigg is the bookkeeper of the Noble Lumber Company and was born in September, 1884, in Texarkana, Ark. When he was 5 years old his father, R. L. Trigg, went into the lumber business, and from that time until 1901 the younger Trigg’s home was usually at the saw mills. During the latter part of 1905 he was an employee of the Commercial bank, Shreveport, La., and January 1, 1906, he assumed his present position.

W. C. Lay.
W. C. Lay, saw mill foreman of the Noble Lumber Company, was born near Sardis, Miss,, in 1866. He began his saw mill experience in south Mississippi. His first record as a sawyer was in the Lake Charles district. He moved to Texas in 1891 and was variously with the Aldridge Lumber Company at Rockland, the Emporia Lumber Company at Emporia, the Henderson Land & Lumber Company at Clawson, back to the Emporia Lumber Company to take charge of its saw mill, and in January, 1906, he assumed the position he now holds.

G. C. Black.
G. C. Black, filer of the Noble Lumber Company, was born in Arkansas in 1884, attended school in Ashdown, Ark., six years, and after that he lived in Caddo, Ind. Ter., and at De Queen, Ark. He began work at a Haw mill as filer in 1902. In July, 1905, he secured the position he now holds.

H. H. Edwards.
H. H. Edwards, sawyer for the Noble Lumber Company, was born in Sabine parish, Louisiana, in 1876. He lived the happy life of the woodsman until 1899, when he went to work for the Noble Lumber Company, making his way rapidly up through the various departments, and became sawyer in 1903; he has never worked elsewhere.

E. H. Hughes.
E. H. Hughes, planer foreman of the Noble Lumber Com puny, was born at Prescott, Ark., in 1877. He has been in the planing mill business since 1898, holding positions with the Valley Lumber Company, Grappes Bluff, La.; Allen Bros. & Wadley, Allentown, La.; French Creek Lumber Company, Chidester, Ark., and has been at Noble for the last eleven months.

W. B. Workman.
W. B. Workman, shipping clerk for the Noble Lumber Company, was born at Verona, Miss., in 1860, and "raised" in Newberg, S. C. He moved to Gurdon, Ark., in 1882, engaged in the lumber business and has since been associated with the Smithton Lumber Company, Louisiana Land & Lumber Company, Lone Star Lumber Company and the R. L. Trigg Lumber Company. He has been with the Noble Lumber Company for seven years.

Torrence S. Lee.
Torrence S. Lee, assistant shipping clerk at Noble, La., was born in Travis, Tex., in 1887. He started in the lumber business with the J. I. Campbell Lumber Company of Texas, later acting as stenographer for that concern, and afterward became bookkeeper and order clerk. Since 1903 he has been associated with the Southern Land & Lumber Company and the Alf Bennett Lumber Company of Shreveport, and in August, 1906, he assumed the position which he now holds.

D. L. Handley.
D. L. Handley, store manager of the Noble Lumber Company, was born at Hortense, Tex., in 1879, and in 1902 began work for the Bering Manufacturing Company. In 1903 he took a commercial course in the Tyler Business College at Tyler, Tex., discharged the duties of collector and clerk in a general merchandise store and afterward secured a position with J. H. Pariah at Moscow, Tex. October 1, 1905, be joined the Noble Lumber Company as clerk and on November 1, 1905, was promoted to hi present position.

Roy O. Youngblood.
Roy O. Youngblood, yard foreman of the Noble Lumber Company, was born at Hemphill, Tex., in 1875. He did his first mill work at Clyde, La., was a clerk at Zwolle, La., obtained a position with the R. L. Trigg Lumber Company at Noble, La., and remained there when the Noble Lumber Company purchased the business; was put on as checker, held the position until the last of December, 1905, and on January 1, 1907, assumed his present position.

J. Moore.
J. Moore, saw mill foreman of the Noble Lumber Company, was born in Panola county, Texas, in 1880. At the age of 20 he began saw mill work for a little mill on the Houston, East & West Texas railway. In September, 1903, Mr. Moore came to Noble, La., and worked on the yard, in the saw mill, night watching, day firing etc., until February, 1905, when he was given his present position.

A. A. Rogers.
A. A. Rogers, planing mill foreman at Noble, was born in Georgia in 1867. He did his first saw milling in 1887 with the Burns Lumber Company, of Burnsville, Miss. He later owned and ran a small saw mill in Shelby county, Texas. From there he went to Pendleton, Tex., and took charge of a saw mill; afterward held a position with the Bowman-Hicks Lumber Company at Loring, La., and from there came to his present position, where he has been for six years.

G. F. Hackney.
G. F. Hackney, woods foreman of the Noble Lumber Company, was born in Tennessee in 1855, and moved to Texas with his parents in 1857. Young Hackney had his first experience in logging on the Houston, East West Texas railway in 1884. Later he held a logging contract for one of the John H. Kirby Lumber Company mills; was general woods foreman for the Central Coal & Coke Company at Kennard, Tex., and afterward formed a copartnership and logged near Center, Tex., sold out, and for a space was in the grain business at Lufkin, Tex., and only recently came to his present position.

J. L. Odom.
J. L. Odom, the main line engineer for the Noble Lumber Company, was born at Logansport, La., in 1871. He began steamboating early in life on the Sabine river and was in the employ of the Chicago Lumber & Coal Company until 1893; was afterward locomotive engineer for the same company until 1894 and came to his present position July 24, 1904.

Fred McWilliams
Fred McWilliams, manager of the camp store for the Noble Lumber Company, was born in Magnolia, Ark., and "raised" in Louisiana. He came to Noble in 1901 and has been with the Noble Lumber Company for six years. In 1905 be became a salesman in the company’s store and after that acquired his present position.

R. V. Payne.
R. V. Payne, clerk in the store of of the Noble Lumber Company, was born in Shelby county, Texas, and bad about five years’ experience in store work for John A. Payne, Palmer, Tex.; B. R. Wiggins., East Hamilton, Tex.; Burk & Wilson at San Augustine, Tex., and R. P. Bell at Noble, La. He began work for the Noble Lumber Company January 1, 1907.

L. L. Stuart.
L. L. Stuart, who has charge of the teams of the Noble Lumber Company, was born May 29, 1876, in Butler county, Alabama, went to Lufkin, Tex., in January, 1898, and worked for A. J. Peavy in the woods for two years and six months and was then appointed team foreman. He later spent two years in a similar position for the Henderson Land & Lumber Company, of Clawson, Tex. After that he logged for himself for six months. He has been with the Noble Lumber Company twelve months.

Dr. S. E. Prince.
Dr. S. E. Prince is the company physician at Noble and was born in Bossier parish, Louisiana, in 1869. He was graduated at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Baltimore, Md., in 1896. Assuming a position with a north Louisiana saw mill as company physican, he remained three years, coming then to the It. L. Trigg Lumber Company at Noble, where he remained as company physician when the Noble Lumber Company took over that concern. Dr. Prince is local surgeon for the Kansas City Southern railway and examiner for several life insurance companies.

A. Newby.
A. Newby has been continuously superintendent of manufacture at Huttig, Ark., for the Union Saw Mill Company since January, 1905. He was born in 1859 in St. Joseph, Mo., and his first experience in yellow pine was with the Missouri Lumber & Mining Company at Grandin, Mo., in 1888. He was with that concern altogether eleven years, finally becoming superintendent. Afterward he had the management of the Holladay-Klotz Land & Lumber Company at Greenville, Mo.; was manager for the Freeman-Smith Lumber Company at Millville, Ark., and manager of the Summit Lumber Company at Randolph, La., and assumed his present position as related above.

R. L. Boddie.
R. L. Boddie, mercantile manager of the Union Saw Mill Company, was born near Camden, Ark., in 1864. He worked a year on the farm and two years in a saw mill. For about fifteen years he worked at clerkships in various Camden (Ark.) stores and was in business for himself for a space. After leaving Camden he was with George D. Hope & Co. at Harlow, Ark.; the Lester Mill Company, Lester, Ark., and came to the Union Saw Mill Company November 15, 1904.

A. E. Culbreath.
A. E. Culbreath is at the head of the Culbreath Logging Company, which is doing the logging for the Union Saw Mill Company at Huttig, Ark. He was bora in Georgia in 1865 and moved with his parents to Arkansas in 1870. His first logging experience was in the redwood country of California, but he came back to Arkansas in 1888, rafted on the Ouachita river above Camden, and became one of the most successful log rafters who have worked on that river. Later he was with the Fordyce Lumber Company at Fordyce, Ark.; the Eagle Lumber Company at Eagle Mills, Ark.; the Arkadelphia Lumber Company at Daleville, Ark.; the Louisiana Long Leaf Lumber Company, Fisher, La.; William Carlisle, in Onalaska, Ark.; the Pine Tree Lumber Company at Winona, La., always in the logging end, and finally associated himself with the Union Saw Mill Company in 1904.

L. H. Bell.
L. H. Bell, surveyor, timber buyer and general land man for the De Soto Land & Lumber Company, was born in De Soto parish, Louisiana, fifty-eight years ago. He was a farmer until 1884, and for seven years a contractor and builder. In 1902 Mr. Bell was appointed parish surveyor by the governor of Louisiana, was reappointed pt the end of four years and shortly after that assumed his present position.

E. L. Lester.
E. L. Lester, roaster mechanic of the De Soto Land & Lumber Company, performs a like service for the Noble Lumber Company. He was born in Missouri in 1871. He engaged in the creamery business at Hale, Mo.; was elected general manager of the Hale Creamery Company; went to Oklahoma and took up electricity, and in July, 1902, engaged in the saw milling business at Vicksburg, Miss. He went to Mansfield March 1, 1905, and was made foreman of construction; in July he was made master mechanic.

C. J. Cochran.
C. J. Cochran, saw mill foreman of the De Soto Land & Lumber Company, was born in North Carolina and lived there until he was 22 years old. He learned the trade of millwright and went to Lufkin, Tex., in 1893, worked for the Tyler Car & Lumber Company at Michelli and stayed there four years. Later he was with the Oliphant Lumber Company, New Waverly, Tex., and with William Cameron & Co. He helped build the mill of the Lufkin Land & Lumber Company, of which he was made foreman, and went to Mansfield In 1905.

N. M. Law.
N. M. Law, night saw mill foreman of the De Soto Land & Lumber Company, was born in 1861 at Jefferson, Tex., and in his younger years was employed in various capacities with small saw milling institutions. He was afterward with T. L. L. Temple; the Jefferson Lumber Company; the Atlanta Lumber Company; the Big Woods Lumber Company; with S. H. Bolinger & Co., at Bolinger, La., and William Buchanan at Springhill, La. He went to Mansfield, La., in March, 1905.

T. L. Hobbs.
T. L. Hobbs, planing mill foreman for the De Soto Land & Lumber Company, was born in 1863 at Waverly, Tenn. He was planing mill foreman at Texarkana for a year and a half, after which he went to Sulphur, Tex.; thence to Westlake, La.; for Locke, Moore & Co., where he remained for eleven years. After that he was with the Lufkin Land & Lumber Company, the Pearl River Lumber Company, the East Union Lumber & Manufacturing Company at Texarkana, Tex., and he joined the Mansfield forces in May, 1906.

C. A. Miller.
C. A. Miller, the night planing mill foreman at Mansfield, was born at Ashley, Ill., in 1880 and entered yellow pine saw milling at Saginaw, Ark., in 1900 for the Saginaw Lumber Company. He was afterward connected with the Pine Tree Lumber Company at Winona, La.; the Huie-Hodge Lumber Company of Louisiana; the Tremont Lumber Company, of Eros, La.; the Central Lumber Company, at Clarks, La., and he went to Mansfiold in 1906.

J. F. Hawthorne.
J. F. Hawthorne, yard foreman of the De Soto Land & Lumber Company, was born at Washington, Ark., in 1876. He worked in the lumber business for William Buchanan at Springhill, La., in 1897 by rolling sawdust. Afterwards he drove a team on the yard, was foreman of the steam stacker, foreman at the dry kiln and foreman of the yard at that place. He went to Mansfield in March, 1905.

R. R. Cheshire.
R. R. Cheshire, the day shipping clerk of the De Soto Land & Lumber Company, was born in Webster parish, Louisiana, in April, 1872. He began lumbering at Springhill, La., under W. T. Ferguson. He remained in the employ of the Springhill people, with the exception of eight months when he worked for the Globe Lumber Company, until he went to Mansfield, July 15, 1905.

R. H. Talley.
R. H. Talley, night shipping clerk of the De Soto Land & Lumber Company, was born in Arkansas in 1883 and lived there until 1898. He went to work for the Pine Woods Lumber Company at Springhill, La., remaining seven years, and went to Mansfield April 15, 1906, to check lumber, and since last fall has been night shipping clerk.

H. J. Tietz.
H. J. Tietz, saw filer for the De Soto Land & Lumber Company, was born in Saginaw, Mich., in 1876. He worked at Pine Bluff, Ark., with the Humphrey Shingle Company; then returned to Saginaw for three years and later was in the employ of the United States government as a millwright. Resigning that position he returned to Pino Bluff and followed his profession of millwright until 1901, when he began saw filing, working in various mills, and going to Mansfield in July, 1905.

C. B. Prestridge.
C. B. Prestridge, day sawyer of the De Soto Land & Lumber Company, was born near Fulton, Ark., in 1880 and finished his education in Austin, Tex. He traveled with his father, who was a commercial man, until October, 1889; then entered the lumber business as a log scaler at Lufkin, Tex.; after that he became extra man in a mill in Lufkin, and after holding the position of head blocksetter went to sawing and was night sawyer until he went to Mansfield in September, 1906.

George S. Corser.
George S. Corscr, night sawyer of the De Soto Land & Lumber Company, was born in Upshire county, Texas, in 1883. His principal work in saw milling was for the L. T. Sloan Lumber Company at Pine Valley, Tex.; the Foster Lumber Company at Oliphant, Tex.; the Lufkin Land & Lumber Company, Lufkin, Tex., and the Minden Lumber Company, Minden, La. He went to Mansfield as night sawyer January 1, 1906.

Thomas Trammell.
Thomas Trammell, who runs the log train engine at Mansfield, La., was born near Magnolia, Ark., in 1868, and remained there until he was about 20 years old, when he went to Stamps, Ark., and began firing an engine in 1887. Later he ran a stationary engine in the saw and planing mill until 1897, then ran a locomotive for William Buchanan until April, 1905, when he went to Mansfield.

A. R. Lester.
A. R. Lester, night checker for the De Soto Land & Lumber Company, was torn in 1867 in St. Landry parish, Louisiana. His first work was on the Atchafalaya river, making staves at West Melville, La. He had a lumber experience at Lake Charles, La.; in Chicot county, Arkansas, and at Marthaville, La., and went to Mansfield January 16, 1906.

R. V. Estes.
R. V. Estes has charge of a department in the mercantile end of the De Soto Land & Lumber Company store. He was born in Keithville, La., in 1879. In 1899 he went to Allentown, La., to work in the general store of Allen Bros. & Wadley. Two years later he was made manager of that store, which position he retained three and one-half years, then going into business for himself for a short time. He went to Mansfield on the establishment of the mercantile end of the De Soto Land & Lumber Company.

H. F. Adams.
H. F. Adams, who is at the head of a department in the store of the De Soto Land & Lumber Company, was born in De Soto parish, Louisiana, in 1884, and, after several years of advanced schooling, in 1904 he assumed his present position.

B. N. Johnson.
B. N. Johnson has charge of a department in the general store of the De Soto Land & Lumber Company and is a native of Texas, 24 years of age.

He received most of his education in Caddo parish, Louisiana. In 1904 he went into the mercantile business for himself in Logansport, La. In 1906 he was in the employ of the rural free delivery, United States mails, out of Logan sport. He entered the commercial end of the De Soto Land & Lumber Company business December 1, 1906.

W. R. McCrocklin.
W. R. McCrocklin, general superintendent of the Black Lake Lumber Company, was born in Chattanooga, Tenn., in 1872. He was reared in Kentucky, and educated in those states. When 19 years of age he went to Genoa, Ark., and began work for Frost & Ferguson. He served four years with the Red River Lumber Company at Frostville, Ark., and later entered the logging firm of Prestridge Bros.; formed a partnership with R. J. Wilson and bought out Prestridge Bros. In 1903 he went to Lufkin, Tex., and became interested in the logging firm of Prestridge & Buchanan and remained there until the organization of the Black Lake Lumber Company.

B. C. Peyton.
B. C. Peyton, store manager of the Black Lake Lumber Company, was born at Peytonville, Ark., in 1872. He received his education in Texarkana, Ark., worked on a farm until 1890, and then entered the employ of a well known merchant as clerk, holding the position for seven years. In 1897 he obtained a position with the Pine Woods Lumber Company at Springhill, La.; from there, later, he removed to Lufkin, Tex., where he assumed management of the Lufkin Land & Lumber Company store, where he remained until the organization of the Black Lake Lumber Company.

J. N. Fite.
J. N. Fite, bookkeeper for the Black Lake Lumber Company, was born in Tennessee in 1868 and was educated in local schools, finishing at the Southwestern Baptist University. After leaving school Mr. Fite was bookkeeper and pharmacist in a drug store at Jackson, Tenn., nine years. Later he was in the book and stationery business in Jackson, Tenn., which he conducted until May, 1906, at that time assuming his present position.

R. E. Wheless.
R. E. Wheless, the talented young shipping clerk of the Black Lake Lumber Company, comes from the well known Wheless family of Alden Bridge, La. His father was H. H. Wheless, one of the stalwarts in yellow pine manufacture in the southwest. He was born at Washington, Ark., in 1885 and began the study of lumber as grader in the planing mill of Whited & Wheless, at Alden Bridge. He spent summers at work and winters at school, two years at the Shreveport high school and two years at Sewanee, Tenn., at the University of the South. He began active work in June, 1903, and since then has been with the Globe Lumber Company at Yellow Pine, La.; Whited & Wheless. Company, at Alden Bridge, La., and in his present position.

C. S. Higginbotham.
C. S. Higginbotham, saw mill foreman of the Black Lake Lumber Company, is a native of Texas and was educated in the common schools. Since he was 21 years old he has been saw milling in Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas and Mississippi, mostly in mill construction work at Neame, Yellow Pine, Minden, Trout and Whitford, La.; Nacogdoches, Tex., and Malvern, Ark.

F. O. Hollinbeck.
F. O. Hollinbeck, planing mill foreman of the Black Lake Lumber Company, was born in Monmouth, Ill., in 1867. His first planing mill experience was with the South Missouri Land & Lumber Company at Willow Springs, Mo. Since then he has been with the Missouri Lumber & Mining Company, Grandin, Mo.; Freeman Lumber Company at Millville, Ark.; J. J. Newman Lumber Company, Hattiesburg, Miss.; Emporia Lumber Company, Emporia, Tex.; Lufkin Land & Lumber Company, Lufkin, Tex., and assumed his present position October 20, 1906.

W. L. Bishop.
W. L. Bishop, filer of the Black Lake Lumber Company, was born in Vernon, N. Y., in 1869 and lived most of his boyhood in Marquette, Mich., where he attended both the district and high schools. In 1888 his family moved to East Saginaw, Mich., where young Bishop entered a filing room under his father and learned his trade at the mill of C. K. Eddy & Sons. Since 1890 he has been filer in many of the best mills of the north and he holds an enviable record wherever he has been.

In March, 1900, he came south as filer with the Lufkin Land & Lumber Company and since then has been with the Texas & Louisiana Lumber Company at Kennard, Tex., the Trinity Lumber Company at Groveton, Tex., and from there went to Campti, La.

R. E. Hammett.
R. E. Hammett, timber estimator for the Black Lake Lumber Company, was born six miles from Campti, Natchitoches parish, Louisiana, in 1875, and educated in the public schools of that parish, working in his father’s store during vacations. Mr. Hammett worked seven years in timber cutting and hauling, then for three years worked in his father’s mill, being a sawyer most of the time. Since then he has been farming and in the timber business combined.

W. B. Few.
W. B. Few, assistant shipping clerk for the Black Lake Lumber Company, was born near Texarkana, Ark., in 1883, and attended school in Texarkana until he was 17 years old. His first saw mill work was with the Lufkin Land & Lumber Company. Two years after he entered Hendricks Academy at Mena, Ark., remained one term and in 1903 returned to Texarkana, remaining there a year. He then went back to Lufkin to scale logs in the woods. From there he went to Frostville, Ark., and from there to Mansfield in March, 1905, thence recently to Campti, La.

W. F. Rogers.
W. F. Rogers, building contractor for the Black Lake Lumber Company, was born in Louisiana in 1870 and educated in the public schools of Bossier parish. In 1896 he began in the lumber business with S. H. Bolinger & Co., of Bolinger, La. In February, 1891, Mr. Rogers went to Plain Dealing, La., and started building houses. In March, 1905, he began building houses for E. A. Frost, first at the De Soto Land & Lumber Company, at Mansfield, La., and in 1906 he was awarded the contract for house building at Campti, La., for the Black Lake Lumber Company, where he has been ever since.

E. A. Hamner.
E. A. Hamner, stenographer for the Black Lake Lumber Company, was born in Bienville parish, Louisiana, in 1883. He remained on his father’s farm and attended public school until he was 16 years old, after which he attended high school for one year. At the ago of 17 he began railroad work. In his eighteenth year young Hamner began the logging business with his father’s teams and later worked in the lumber business, afterwards matriculating at one of Draughon’s Business colleges, where he was graduated in bookkeeping and shorthand in January, 1906.

Dr. F. J. Green.
Dr. F. J. Green is exclusively in charge of the health of the employees and employees' families of the Black Lake Lumber Company. He was born in August, 1876, in Woods county, Texas, and was reared on a farm, attending the public schools and the Sumner Hill select school at Omen, Tex. He studied medicine and surgery at the Louisville (Ky.) Medical College, following that with a course at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Atlanta, Ga., and was graduated in March, 1903, at the Dallas Medical College, Dallas, Tex. His professional zeal and ability are regarded highly.

J. W. Prestridge.
J. W. Prestridge is the best known logging man now connected with the Frost interests, and has been with the Frosts in some capacity since they were first interested in lumber at Genoa, Ark. He was born in 1857 near Eldorado, Ark., and early in life moved to Miller county, that state, and in 1891 went to work for the Frosts. He is a stockholder in several of the Frost enterprises, president of the Prestridge-Buchanan Logging Company -- a partnership -- at Campti, La., manager of the logging department of the Carter-Kelley Lumber Company at Manning, Tex., and a resident of Lufkin.

J. H. Buchanan.
J. H. Buchanan, of the Prestridge-Buchanan Logging Company, was born in 1868 in Stewart county, Tennessee, and there received the principal part of his education. Since he was 20 years old he has been in the logging business. He became associated with George S. and J. W. Prestridge under the firm name of Prestridge & Buchanan when they were logging the mill of the Lufkin Land & Lumber Company. In January, 1906, Prestridge & Buchanan sold out their outfit at Lufkin and went to Grappes Bluff, La., where they bought the outfit and contract of the Caddo Logging Company March 15, 1906, for the purpose of logging the mill of the Black Lake Lumber Company.

E. D. Smith.
E. D. Smith, a partner in the business of the Prestridge-Buchanan Logging Company, has charge of the clerical affairs of the company and is located in the general merchandise store of the institution at Grappes Bluff, La. He was born in 1875 in Georgia, where he lived on a farm and went to school until March, 1888, when his parents moved to Houston, Tex., and later to Nacogdoches, Tex., where he entered school and remained until 1892, when for the first time he left homo and went to work for the Angelina County Lumber Company. His career is most interesting, but it can be told only in part. He became associated with G. S. Prestridge & Co., log contractors, in 1904, the business of which he managed at Noble for a time. January 1, 1905, he organized the Calvert Smith Dry Goods Company at Lufkin, Tex., where he remained for two years. In October, 1906, Mr. Smith purchased an interest in the logging business of the Prestridge-Buchanan Logging Company and assumed his present position.

Claude McCrocklln.
Claude McCrocklin, locomotive engineer for the Black Lake Lumber Company, was born at Chattanooga, Tenn., in October, 1875, and for a man but little over 31 years of age has lived a very eventful life and seen much of the world. He received a public school education and served an apprenticeship at the blacksmith trade. In 1900 he enlisted in Company "E" of the Second Regiment, United States Infantry, and sailed for the Philippine islands, arriving there December 23, 1900, and served until November 14, 1902, when he was honorably discharged. In March, 1904, he began service as a locomotive fireman for Prestridge & Buchanan, of Lufkin, Tex., and has served in similar capacity for the Black Lake Lumber Company since April, 1906.

F. L. Wisdom.
F. L. Wisdom, head bookkeeper for the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company at Shreveport, La., was born in Buena Vista, Ga., in 1874, came to Texarkana in 1886 and was graduated at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas in 1896. He first entered the lumber business in 1897, at Allen, Tex., for the Little River Lumber Company, and since has been associated with the St. Louis Southwestern Railway Company at Texarkana; Arkansas Lumber Company, of Morton, Tex.; Southern Pine Lumber Company, at Diboll, Tex., and in Texarkana; and December 30, 1905, went to work for the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company.

H. R. Asman.
H. R. Asman, manager of the timber and specials department of the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company, of St. Louis, was born in that city in 1856 and received his education there. He was secretary of the John J. Ganahl Lumber Company from 1872 to 1876; manager of the timber department of the St. Louis Refrigerator & Wooden Gutter Company from 1887 to 1896; vice president of the Arkadelphia Lumber Company, of Daleville, Ark., 1897-1898. He took charge of the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company's timber and special department in 1899. Some idea of the character of Mr. Asman's work in this department may be gathered from the fact that in eight years but 1,350 order numbers have been used, which upon examination show that his orders have averaged 160,000 feet of lumber.

Clinton M. Hanger.
Clinton M. Hanger, traveling salesman for the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company for northern Indiana and northern Illinois, with headquarters at Morocco, Ind., was born on a farm near the latter point January 21, 1859, and there spent his early days, attending district school in the winter time. He is a graduate of the Northern Indiana Normal School at Valparaiso. Ind. After graduation from college he formed a partnership with his father in the retail lumber, coal and implement business at Morocco and remained in that business for ten years. In 1900 Mr. Hanger joined the Burns Lumber Company, of Chicago, as traveling salesman; was afterwards with the Southern Products Company, of Indianapolis, in a similar position, after which he secured his present position with the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company. He is a forceful and successful business man, self made by hard work and doing he conceives to be his duty. He owns one of the finest residences in Morocco, where he resides with his family.

J. L. Klemeyer.
J. L. Klemeyer, traveling representative of the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company in southern Illinois and eastern Iowa, with headquarters at Effingham, Ill., was born in Bremen, Germany, June 30, 1880, and there attended the public and high schools, graduating in 1895. When 15 years of age he came to St. Louis, securing work for a year at the then plant of the Holladay-Klotz Land & Lumber Company at Greenville, Mo., and spent a year in the various departments of that business. After his experience at Greenville in the mill and woods he entered the company’s office, where he spent two years in general office work. He then became salesman for the Camden Lumber Company for St. Louis and adjacent territory; traveled later for Whited & Wheless, Limited, of Alden Bridge, La., in Illinois and Indiana, and from March, 1903, until August, 1904, traveled for the Vancleve Lumber Company, of St. Louis, his territory for that concern covering also Illinois and Indiana. In August, he began in his present position with the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company.

Edgar A. McKenzie.
E. A. McKenzie, traveling salesman for the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company in central Illinois and Wisconsin, was born in Lincoln, Ill., November 13, 1869. After leaving college he found a position with B. P. Andrews, one of Lincoln's best known lumbermen. In 1890 he was transferred to Sullivan, Ill., to a position with B. P. Andrews & Co., which he held until 1897, when the yard was sold. He then secured a position with his father at Elwood, Ind., as planing mill foreman of the mill of McKenzie & Co., which he held until seven years ago, when he entered the wholesale business as traveling salesman.

W. A. Eider.
W. A. Rider for the last twenty years has represented some of the best known wholesale firms of Chicago and St. Louis as traveling salesman in Indiana, Ohio and Illinois. He was born in Iroquois county, Illinois, in 1855, and spent his early manhood in teaching school, and after five years he became interested with his brother, George D. Rider, in a lumber yard at Kentland, Ind. In 1886 he sold out and became traveling salesman for the South Branch Lumber Company, of Chicago, afterwards traveling for the Edward Hines Lumber Company, of Chicago, and after an experience as salesman for a yellow pine firm -- now out of' business -- he came with, the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company, of St. Louis, in 1902 to travel exclusively in Indiana, with headquarters at Indianapolis.

W.H.Loomis.
W. H. Loomis is a general salesman for the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company, of St. Louis, traveling in northern Missouri, Iowa and southern Minnesota. He was born in 1884 at Hannibal, Mo. In 1901, in his seventeenth year, he worked as a contractor at a coal mining plant at Milan, Mo. Afterwards he took a mining engineering course for two years in the State University of Kansas and later was interested in surveying for some time. He was drawn to the lumber business through reading the great illustrated writeup of the Union Saw Mill Company which appeared in the AMERICAN LUMBERMAN January 28, 1905, was given a position at Huttig and went through the various grades of that lumber college from stacking lumber up, and, barring a few months’ association with the Arkansas Fuel Company, of Kansas City, Mo., has been connected continuously with either the Union Saw Mill Company or Frost-Trigg Lumber Company.

C.H. Hesser.
C. H. Hesser, Indian Territory representative of the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company, working for the Shreveport branch, with headquarters at Denison, Tex., was born in Waxahachie, that state, in 1867. He began to learn the lumber business in the arduous capacity of a teamster for the M. T. Jones Lumber Company, with plant at Ennis, Tex. From 1889 to 1892 he was manager of the Jones plant in Houston and then took charge of his father’s retail yard at Ennis as bookkeeper and assistant manager, where he remained until 1895. After having various traveling and managerial positions in lumber he was appointed in 1895 to the position with the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company, which he still holds, evidently to the satisfaction of all concerned.

D. D. Fairchild, Jr.
D.D. Fairchild, jr., is the Texas representative of the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company, of Shreveport, La. Mr. Fairchild was born in Waco, Tex., and began learning the lumber business os a day laborer with the Thompson-Tucker Lumber Company at Willard, Tex. Then he went to work for the Foster Lumber Company at Clinesburg, Tex. Following this he worked for William Cameron & Co. at Waco as yardman in their retail yard, and then went to Coleman, Tex., for the Burton-Lingo Company, whero he kept books until he associated himself with the Frost Trigg Lumber Company.

J. G. Wells.
J. G. Wells, Missouri representative of the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company of Shreveport, La., with headquarters at Aurora, Mo., was born in Kentucky in 1861. His first experience with the lumber business was managing a small stock of poplar lumber in his native town. He went west in 1895 and sold lumber two years at Paris, Tex., on his own account. In 1894 Mr. Wells entered the service of a Missouri house as local manager of a retail yard, remaining for four years; was manager and auditor for a string of yards in Oklahoma from 1900 to 1904 and entered the service of the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company as traveling salesman in September, 1904.

W. C. Lawson.
W. C. Lawson, who has within the last month joined the traveling force of the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company and will work through the Shreveport office, was born in Houston, Tex. After leaving college he had a position for a short time with the American Cotton Company and was afterward with the El Paso & Northeastern Railway Company as bookkeeper in its store department at Alamagordo, N. M. For the past three years he has held a position as bookkeeper with William Cameron & Co., Limited.

L. A. Paulk.
L. A. Paulk, the assistant bookeeper of the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company of Shreveport, La., was born November 4, 1883, in Miller county, Arkansas. During the summer of 1903 he entered the private office of E. W. Frost at Texarkana, where he continued to work during his senior year at school. In October, 1905, he entered the Eastman National Business College at Poughkeepsie, N. Y., from which institution be was graduated in February, 1906. On February 26 of that year he joined the office force of the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company of Shreveport.