The White Sulphur Lumber Company, Limited, at Jena, La., is an enterprise which is a credit to this or any other locality. A large amount of timber is still available here. The timber is of the finest quality, and the only reason for its tardy development seems to have been the difficulty, of getting it out of the hills. However, the Catahoula Central railway is handling the trains successfully and economically, and it would seem that the logging end of this proposition is in exceedingly fine shape. The operators have in mind the building of a larger and better mill, possibly on a site more suitable for growth than the present.

At the completion of the Jena branch of the Louisiana & Arkansas railway, in 1903, attention was attracted to the possibilities of developing timber holdings in the vicinity of Jena. The first mill located here was operated by the Jena Lumber Company, which continued manufacturing for a year with a small mill cutting 15,000 feet. After passing through the hands of several parties the first purchases of consequence were made by Waverly and W. L. Whitaker, Jr., under the firm name of Whitaker & Whitaker, in April, 1905, and in October of that year the White Sulphur Lumber Company, Limited, was organized, with:

President.—T. H. Garrett, St. Louis, Mo.
Vice president—Waverly Whitaker, Jena, Ark.
Secretary and treasurer—W. L. Whitaker, Jena, Ark.

The mill at this time was cutting 35,000 feet and the capital stock of the company was $50,000. In January, 1907, the capital stock was increased to $200,000 and the capacity of the mill increased to 60,000 feet. In the fall of 1906 the company had made purchases of 40,000,000 feet of timber, in addition to the 9,000,000 feet originally owned, and the wooden tram operated at that time was replaced by a chartered railway of standard gage under the title of the Catahoula Central railway. In June, 1908, an additional purchase of 50,000,000 feet was made and now the uncut standing timber aggregates 90,000,000 feet.

The White Sulphur Mill and Timber.
The mill site, located three-fourths of a mile northeast of Jena, is connected with the Louisiana & Arkansas railway. The company contemplates erecting a larger plant, to enable it to handle its increasing business.

The present officers of the White Sulphur Lumber Company, Limited, are:
President—T. H. Garrett', St. Louis, Mo.

Vice president—George B. Hogg, St. Louis, Mo.
Secretary and treasurer—H. Whitaker, Jena, La.
General manager—W. H. H. Moores, Jena, La.

The timber holdings of the White Sulphur Lumber Company, Limited, lie in Catahoula and the new Lasalle parishes, Louisiana; the mill is also in the new parish. The timber is longleaf yellow pine, except small portions in creek bottoms, is mainly located southeast of the mill at a distance from three to fifteen miles and covers between 11,000 to 12,000 acres. It will cut from 8,000 to 9,000 feet to the acre.

The mill makes a specialty of cutting railroad construction timbers, 2-inch dimension, German primes for export, and rough finish.

The Woods and the Railroad.
The employees of the company aggregate seventy-five men, of whom forty-five are at the mill and thirty in the woods and on the railway. The woods foreman is Robert Watson, and in his department at the very comfortable camp four miles from the mill his woods force is accommodated in six roomy car houses, which are neatly painted and present an unusually clean and sanitary appearance. In the woods operations thirty oxen and sixteen mules are used with four Bender slip-tongue cars and three Lindsay 8-wheel wagons. Loading is done with oxen and twenty-four cars a day are loaded with an average of 2,800 feet to the car. The cars are handled in trains of eight each.

The officers of the Catahoula Central railroad are:

President—Poindexter Dunn.
Vice president—W. L. Whitaker, Jr.
Secretary and treasurer—R. I. Taliaferro.

The main line and spurs aggregate eight and one- half miles of 35-pound steel and the logging equipment consists of twenty-four skeleton cars. The locomotives are two in number. No. 2 is a 29-ton Rhode Island and No. 3 is a 32-ton Shay.

The logs are stored in a pond of 50,000,000 feet capacity, supplied by a small stream.


Sawing and Shipping.
J. T. Simmons is foreman of the saw mill, which has a capacity of 60,000 feet a clay. The mill carries a 60-inch saw; the carriage is 3-block, twenty-four feet long, with twin engine feed. The edger carries four saws. The mill is driven by a 13x18 engine and the rolls etc. by another, a 12x14 engine. Power is generated in a boiler house located north of the mill in three boilers, two of which are 60x16 and one 46x12.

An electric light plant has been installed, with capacity of 500 16-candle power lights. The dynamo was made by the Triumph Electric Company, Cincinnati, Ohio, and is 120 amperes, 250 volts capacity.

The shipping platform extends 350 feet south of the mill along the timber dock. Of the shipments 6 percent is exported to Germany and the remainder of the output is marketed jointly through the Hogg-Harris Lumber Company and the T. H. Garrett Lumber Company, both concerns having headquarters in St. Louis.