Without parable or metaphor; without the unnecessary use of adjectives, the AMERICAN LUMBERMAN will essay to tell how, in less than thirty years, a great commercial lumber factor of the west has grown from nothing to an affiliated interest which today shows an actual investment of nearly seven millions of dollars.

In more specific assertion this is to be in the plainest English a history of the Long-Bell Lumber Company, of Kansas City, Mo., and its many affiliations.

Accompanying these lines of type is another translation and description of the rise and progress of this institution made possible by the happy combination of camera craft and engraver’s art.

The themes of these two commercial recitals are to be similar. They are to individually and collectively follow the course of lumber making from Tree to Trade.

The pictorial tale of yellow pine lumber production is here told in four parts, inasmuch as the lumber handled by the Long-Bell Lumber Company and its affiliations is produced in four distinct manufacturing plants.

In these pictures may be seen the falling trees; the logs being rolled to the cars in the woods; the locomotives which haul the cars; the great log trains, stopping a moment for camera convenience; the uninterrupted splash of the logs in the pond; the great mills where the logs are cut into lumber; the vast areas of lumber in pile at the various manufacturing plants; the exteriors and interiors of the planing mills, dry kilns and lumber sheds where the lumber is manufactured into commercial dimensions, dried and stored; the trains of loaded cars carrying it into consumption, and incidentally typical scenes at the camps and about the lumbering towns; and each in its turn, a representation of the retail yards.

And through it all, from the very beginning to the extreme end where the great pile of lumber is used for a frame in which stands a recapitulation of the salient points of the text, runs a chain of human interest -- the pictures of the men who do the work, from the president and prime mover in all the various ramifications of the Long-Bell Lumber Company to the man who finally disposes of the product to the consumer.

Collateral to this from Tree to Trade story of the manufacture of yellow pine lumber will be found also the pictorial story of the coal interests and the Pacific coast interests of the company.

In illustrating this article the writer has endeavored to make these pictures such a "speaking likeness" of lumber production and handling that no more explanation than the foregoing shall be needed.

To the layman and even to the casual reader the text may speak for itself.

No particular history will be set down in these introductory paragraphs. These things have been taken care of in the descriptions of the departments which follow.

The Corner Stone.
Astonished and interested though we may be in the great superstructure which success has builded, no man with red blood and human aspirations has ever been able to look upon great commercial results without instantly feeling a human interest in the man or men who crystallized Effort into Fact.

The records of many commonwealths of the Union show the incorporation of the various companies which directly and collaterally make up the Long-Bell Lumber Company and its affiliated interests.

There have been many beginnings to the one great interest which this story is to discuss in particular detail. But the corner stone happening; the key to the arch, the event which is the beginning of the whole proposition occurred in 1850 in the county of Shelby, in the state of Kentucky, in the birth at that time and in that place of Robert Alexander Long.

For twenty-two years after his birth Mr. Long was engaged in laying the foundation for all his present success -- in learning to work with his hands and in training his brain to high ideals.

When at the age of twenty-three Mr. Long left Kentucky and went to Kansas City his clean ideals and capacity to work hard and intelligently were his capital stock.

He wanted to do things in the present; to know that each day and each hour was full of effort. He realized »that brick by brick the wall goes up; that blow by blow white heated iron is fashioned into something useful; that the constant pouring of the water sluices out the dirt and leaves the gold.

A detailed account of Mr. Long’s beginning in the lumber trade is to be found in that part of this article devoted to the retail department.

He began with the disposing of lumber to the consumer and gradually throughout the years has worked his way back from that to the production of lumber, personally going into and enjoying an extensive experience in every branch of the business.

Today Mr. Long is president of the Long-Bell Lumber Company, of Kansas City; the Rapides Lumber Company, of Woodworth, La.; the King-Ryder Lumber Company, of Bonami, La.; the Hudson River Lumber Company, of DeRidder, La.; the Globe Lumber Company, Limited, of Yellow Pine, La.; the Minnetonka Lumber Company, the Fidelity Land & Improvement Company and the Fidelity Fuel Company, and of the Long-Bell railway system, and is a large stockholder in the Weed Lumber Company, of Weed, Siskiyou county, California.

The Long-Bell Lumber Company and affiliated interests made sales last year aggregating $7,199,237.25, paid freight amounting to $1,927,509.71, shipped 23,488 cars of material, had on its payroll 3,713 men and lost from bad accounts only $6,189.24.

More of these straight out from the shoulder facts adorn the Recapitulation appearing in the great pile of lumber at the end of this story. But this small assortment of the details of this great commercial enterprise are culled out and printed above to show even thus early in this simple story what a man can do with pure ideals and two strong hands which have learned to work -- and all in the space of less than thirty years.

Mr. Long’s entry into the coal trade and the establishment of his business on the West Coast are depicted under their proper heads in the story that follows.

Very few persons in the commercial world have been privileged to climb the ladder of success without being compelled often to step backward and to the side. Commercially for the last thirty years Mr. Long has been at all times slowly and surely advancing.

The public is always desirous of knowing by what means success is achieved, hoping to draw some valuable lessons from the examples of others. Hence the stories of the lives of successful men have come to be so much in demand that many great magazines are at all times anxious to secure captains of industry copy.

The particular point which has seemed to interest the public above all others is how the various successful people look upon their own success and to what particular effort they attribute those successes. On this point most successful men are extremely reticent; and in this particular R. A. Long does not differ materially from the great majority.

To one who has been privileged to intimately observe his methods the solution of the problem is not so difficult or intricate. Nothing has done more for Mr. Long than has his intimate knowledge of men. With that he has a personality that is charming and yet strong; a human magnetism which is honestly used to bring about natural results.

Mr. Long has been since the inception of that organization one of the most incisive and convincing debaters that the Southern Lumber Manufacturers’ Association has known and he is now the president of that body. His arguments, whether in carefully prepared paper or in impromptu speech, are always consistent. He never wastes time in intricate phraseology. Mr. Long’s paper on the question of yellow pine stumpage which was read at the New Orleans meeting of the Southern Lumber Manufacturers’ Association in January last year has become a classic in the commercial world of yellow pine. That was the paper which began with the assertion that "knowledge is an asset" and went so thoroughly into the question that it is now considered the only definite statistical information extant on the subject of yellow pine stumpage.

When the great National Wholesale Lumber Dealers’ Association met in Chicago a few years ago Mr. Long delivered a talk on monetary affairs which placed him in the front rank of lumber financiers of the whole country. He did not look upon that event of his life as a great achievement, because it came only in the natural order of things and seemed to him simply a little duty which it was a pleasure to perform. It was, however, a coming into his own; the making of Mr. Long a recognized authority on these matters.

Referring again more particularly to those things which have made the business of the Long-Bell Lumber Company and its affiliations the pronounced success they are known to have attained, there is no doubt in the mind of the writer that to nothing else is it more attributable than to the practical loyalty of his men. That word "practical" is used advisedly. It is not the loyalty which is effervescent, but the cool, calculating esteem which comes from his lieutenants with close association and which grows stronger with the years.

Mr. Long’s business career has been one of practical profit sharing with the men of ability and worth with whom he has been associated. He has chosen first men of ability. He has proven their worth, and then he has given them an opportunity to become independent in this world’s goods, a condition which never comes to any man working on a salary unless he have also some active moneyed interest in the business. At least a dozen men who began with Mr. Long with the sole capital of ability are today worth from $12,000 to $150,000 personally. This money they have made out of stock in the various and varied interests they have been allowed to hold and to pay for from the accrued dividends. This is indeed the most practical profit sharing.

Mr. Long maintains in a most matter of fact way that no business is properly organized unless it have every position of trust within its composition thoroughly prepared by having some man a little farther down who is thoroughly prepared to step into the place which death or resignation might make vacant. A carefully prepared tabulated statement of the length of time that forty-one of Mr. Long’s lieutenants have been associated with the business shows that they have been with the company an average of nine years. Sixteen of these men have been associated with Mr. Long an average of nearly seventeen years. These straws bended by the wind of fact point out in no uncertain way the direction in which Mr. Long has traveled and help to explain why there have been no backward steps in his career.

Some of the illustrations not referred to in the paragraphs of this introduction have an interesting bearing upon Mr. Long’s business and social evolution during the last thirty years. These illustrations are the pictures of the various homes in which he has lived during that time, as shown on this page of this article. The little square house at Columbus, Kan., in which Mr. Long lived just after his marriage and in which his daughters were born, and an office a size smaller than the house which shows Mr. Long -- the manager, the bookkeeper and the yard foreman all in one -- in his shirt sleeves in the doorway; a finer and more commanding home, also at Columbus, in which Mr. Long and his family spent many happy years; and finally in the right hand corner of this page the magnificent residence in Kansas City which he now owns and occupies and from which he dispenses practical philanthropy, known in hundreds of homes, of which the world will never obtain knowledge, particularly illustrated in his having made possible the building of the Prospect Avenue Christian church, one of the finest public edifices of worship in that western metropolis.

One particular thing which the lumber public has never been able to even approximately understand is how Mr. Long has retained the vigor of early manhood and yet has been able to personally conduct the large and increasing business of the Long-Bell Lumber Company and its affiliations, which can be exemplified in no better way than by a painstaking resume of the report system which has been gradually evolved during Mr. Long’s career and which is in practical use throughout his vast affairs.

This report system will be taken up in the subdivision of this introduction which follows.

The Simple System of Reports.
When a business is situated all under one roof, or at one point, it becomes a comparatively easy scheme to have that business supervised by one man. When a business is scattered over half the area of the commercial empire it is not so easy, and yet it is quite as necessary that all of the affairs of the business shall pass through the hands and under the eye of the master mind which must superintend the business if it is to be a success.

To the uninitiated the system of daily, weekly and monthly reports established by the Long-Bell Lumber Company seems a complex affair, and it is a wonder to the layman how the head of the Long-Bell Lumber Company and its affiliations is able to comprehend all of its ramifications.

If this system of reports were to be described in the language of an accountant it would all seem a maze in which it would be easy for any one to become entangled, but, desiring to elucidate the proposition, it will here be told in the language of the novice rather than the expert and made as simple as possible, so "that he who runs may read." Retail Reports.

The company uses a system of bookkeeping and reports for the retail yards which is the result of the experience and growth of the retail business since its inception, and the management considers the system as it now stands as nearly perfect as it can be made. It is simple but at the same time comprehensive and thorough.

The yards use a combination carbon journal which contains a complete showing of all credits and cash sales, cash receipts and disbursements, outstanding accounts -- balanced each day -- bank accounts, general office account, expense account, estimated profits, sales for the day and total sales to date, the outstandings itemized as to the year in which they were made, and each of these headings balanced up on every report. Alternate leaves -- the originals -- are torn from the journal and sent to the general office, leaving the carbon copies as permanent leaves in the journal kept at the yard.

In addition to this there is an accompanying daily report of stock received and sales from a stock register kept at the yard and frequently checked up by the auditors. In addition to the daily reports the yards are required to make out monthly statements of business done, which are condensed statements of the total business of the month. Balances on these statements are carried forward from month to month, thus showing the business done each month as well as the total amounts of business done for the year up to the end of such month.

The yards also send in monthly itemized lists of outstanding accounts showing the name of the debtor, amount of the account, date of first and last purchase, date of first and last payment and the address and occupation of the debtor.

There is also a form of blanks used in checking reports on each car of material received showing amount of freight, name of shipper, date of unloading and the condition of the stock as received.

Salaries are paid semimonthly, vouchers being sent by mail to the agents from the general office twice each month. From the reports received from the yards the general office is able to make up a complete statement at the end of the year showing the amount of sales from each yard, profits and sources from whence derived, expenses, net gain and also the quantity of sales of each kind of material unloaded. This statement is made a regular yearly record in the general office and shows the complete business at each yard and at the total number of yards.

The combination journal originated and used by this company is at the present time used by a great many other line yards.

Coal Department Reports.
The mines send daily to the Kansas City office shipping reports on all coal that is loaded at the respective mines; these reports show car numbers, weights and to whom and where the coal was shipped. In addition to the shipping reports mentioned there is for the information of the general office a small report giving the number of men working and the tonnage for each man daily.

The traveling men as well as all sales agents make up what is called a "No. 9 report." These reports are made out on each customer and record whether or not sales are made so that the general office may be in complete touch with the situation at all times. These No. 9 reports show in detail number of cars sold, kind, size, when shipped, routing, price and rate. A blank is also provided for the salesman’s opinion as to the credit of the customer.

Reports from Saw Mills.
The reports of all kinds from the saw mills are the most comprehensive and yet the simplest affairs of that sort which are now in use. As to the results daily at these mills, the president of the Long-Bell Lumber Company and its affiliations has at his command a word picture of results at the various points which come to him with regularity and with only that intervention of time necessary for transit in the mails. By this means and through his general mill superintendent and auditor he is as well informed of the actual saw milling conditions as though he were within sound of the morning whistle each working day.

The daily reports show in each case the number of hours the saw mill ran, whether those hours were day or night, and in case of a double mill how many logs were manufactured both upon the long and short sides by day and by night, the number of feet log measure produced by day and by night, the total of both logs and feet and the averages of logs by day and by night. Subjoined to this is a total for the current month inclusive of day and night runs shown in number of logs and in thousands of feet. This report also shows the run of the planer by hours, shipments in carloads from the planer by days, the number of cars for that day and the total number of cars shipped that month inclusive of that day, and in the same way are the shipments from the lath mill shown; also the total number of cars is indicated.

The daily report also shows the number of orders received for the day and the total number for the current month inclusive of that day, also total orders in hand. It also shows store sales. This report also shows in the line of car service the number of cars received at the planing mill, lath mill and saw mill at 6 o'clock in the morning and the number of cars loaded at the various points at 6 o’clock p.m.

Monthly Saw Mill Report.
This many paged typewritten document with its thirty-eight different and distinct items shows financial statement, loss and gain, stumpage, log gain, logs in feet, lumber, lath account, lumber in feet, logs hauled to mill, logs manufactured, store and butcher shop profits, doctors’ fees, saw mill operating, stacker and dry kiln operating, yard operating, planing mill operating, shipping expense, general expense, office expense, sales expense, machine shop operating, electric light and water works operating, log team account, suspense account, bills payable, bills receivable, liabilities and quick assets, accounts receivable, accounts payable, overdrawn employees’ accounts, insurance, amount of insurance carried on each part of the plant, past due accounts, salaried men, change in plant accounts -- is in fact a draft of the face of the books of each plant but is so simply and easily put together and arranged that it is but little more difficult to comprehend than the simpler daily reports.

It is worth describing in detail in order to show how thoroughly the Long-Bell Lumber Company’s affiliated mills work out the details of their manufacturing effort.

Detail of Saw Mill Monthly Reports.
Referring to the above list of accounts they first start out with the financial statement, which consists of the trial balance on the books and also gives the loss and gain for the month and year. This report shows the exact profits from the entire business, not only for the day and for the month but for the year as well.

The second item consists of the loss and gain in detail which gives the different accounts in which there is a loss or gain for the month.

Item No. 3, Stumpage; shows the amount of stumpage on hand in feet, also the number of acres, the cut-over lands, any expense of the month and also any purchases or sales that are made.
Item No. 4, Log Account; this gives in detail the different items which go to make up the expense of handling logs from the tree to the mill. This account is gone into to the minutest detail.
Item No. 5, Logs in feet; this gives the logs in feet that are on hand not only at the mill but also in the woods and on skids at the railroads.
Item No. 6, Lumber, shows that account with all the manufacturing expenses for the month closed into it; the account being credited with the sales and showing either a loss or gain for the month and which amount is governed by that received for stock sold.
Item No. 7, Lath Account, consists practically of items of expense expended in manufacturing and selling lath and also shows a profit or loss for the month.
Item No. 8, Lumber in Feet, shows the amount of lumber on hand on the first day of the month and to which is added the number of feet manufactured, log scale, and is credited with the sales in feet and the difference between the two and the percentage of overrun.
Item No. 9, Logs Hauled to Mill, shows the logs hauled to the mill, the number of cars, number of logs, scale and the average number of feet per log.
Item No. 10, Logs Manufactured, shows logs manufactured at the saw mill and gives the number of logs, number of feet and the average feet per log.
Item No. 11, Store; in this account are items of all the expenses charged that go to make up the expense of a mercantile house; also purchases. There are shown in this account sales to the plant and sales to employees, separated, so that it can be told at a glance knowing the amount of payroll -- the exact percentage of payroll which is coming through the store. This account will also show a profit or a loss each month.
Item No. 12, Butcher Shop; this is on the same basis as the store account, but put under a separate heading.
Item No. 13; this gives the total amount of payroll for the month and the percentage paid through store and butcher shop.
Item No. 15, Saw Mill Operating; under this heading are itemized all the expenses incurred in operating the saw mill, including salaries and minor repairs.
Item No. 16, Stacker and Dry Kiln Operating; in this account are included all the items of expense necessary for running the stacker and kiln drying itemized, giving in detail the exact expenses and the items that go to make up the expense.
Item No. 17, Yard Operating; this represents the expense of handling lumber from the sorting shed at the end of the mill to the pile, and in detail.
Item No. 18, Planing Mill Operating; under this head is itemized all the expenses, including salaries and incidentals, such as insurance, lights, water, oil etc. necessary to be used in operating a planing mill.
Item No. 19, Shipping Expense; this represents labor etc. in taking lumber from the machine and putting it in ear.
Item No. 20, General Expense; includes the president’s and general manager’s salary, also any expense that does not belong to any one department.
Item No. 21, Office Expense; represents the entire expense of running the office, including cashier’s and bookkeeper’s salaries, all office supplies etc.
Item No. 22, Sales Expense; represents expense of marketing stock.
Item No. 23, Machine Shop Operating; represents the stock on hand usually kept in the machine shop and as the different departments call on the shop for work or repairs it is charged into the separate departments.
Item No. 24, "E. L. & W. W." Operating; represents the expense of running electric light and water works.
Item No. 26, Suspense Account; represents the railroad expenses and earnings given in detail.
Item No. 27, Bills Payable; this is itemized, showing the name, amount due and date when due of all paper outstanding.
Item No. 28, Bills Receivable; gives same information as contained in bills payable.
Item No. 29, Quick Assets; in this account is shown all the quick assets which include such items as bills receivable, cash, or in fact any asset that can be turned into money quickly. Also in this account are shown in detailed items all liabilities of whatever nature.
Item No. 30, Liabilities and Quick Assets; shows any accounts other than those used in the quick assets and it can be told at a glance exactly which accounts and how much each have been reduced or increased each month.
Item No. 31, Accounts Receivable; under this heading are the names of all customers, location and amounts owing.
Item No. 32, Accounts Payable; this is a complete list of all open accounts, showing the names of parties and the amounts due them.
Item No. 33, Overdrawn Employees’ Account; if for any reason any of the employees have overdrawn their accounts these are itemized and the amount overdrawn is under this heading.
Item No. 34, Insurance; under this heading are the names of the insurance companies, the number of each policy with the date of expiration and the amount of policy and premium paid.
Item No. 35, Insurance Division; under this heading is shown the exact amount of insurance carried on any and all of the different departments and buildings connected with the business.
Item No. 36, Past Due Accounts; this gives a list of all past due accounts, showing due date, name of the company or party, the amount of invoice or estimated freight if the freight bill has been returned and the net amount owing.
Item No. 37, Salaried Men; gives a complete list of all the salary men in the employ of any of the companies from the president down to the water boy, if he is on a salary basis.
Item No. 38, Change in Plant Accounts; under this heading are obtained the changes in the plant accounts, as often the amounts are increased or decreased, and by referring to the statement it can be told at a glance why and how much the accounts are changed.

Six Sheets of Summary.
When it comes to figuring the cost of production there is in use at all of the plants forms of the same kind so that month after month comparative statements of the different mills can be made very readily. In figuring cost in the different departments figures are shown both on log scale and board measure in the minutest detail.

The first sheet covers stumpage and cutting. The saw mill is charged a fixed sum for stumpage; cutting is sometimes contracted and sometimes done by the day. Under the heading of hauling and loading this department is itemized as follows: Hauling, company teams; Feed, company teams; Incidental, company teams; Hauling, hired teams; Incidental, hired teams; Loading; Loading, incidental.

Some of the plants are able to operate steam skidders and are compelled to keep this cost and expense separate, which is done in the following manner: Labor, skidding; labor, loading; fuel; locomotive; locomotive, fuel; incidentals.

In railroad expense the department account is divided into the following expenses: Train crew; fuel; section crew; engine repairs; car repairs; engine supplies; car supplies; railroad construction.

In figuring expense of saw mill operating there is used as a basis the logs manufactured, on basis of both log scale and board measure. Under this heading is obtained the following information: Number hours run during month; days run, 11-hour basis; number logs sawed, average per log; labor, boom crew; incidentals, boom crew; labor, saw mill; oil; belting; band saws; round saws; electric light and water; insurance; machine shop; incidentals.

In Sheet No. 3 is found steam stacker and dry kiln expense. Under this heading the departments are divided as follows: Stacker labor; dry kiln labor; unloading kiln cars; incidentals.

Further on this sheet is "trucking" and "stacking" in dry sheds, where is shown the cost to truck and stack the lumber into the dry lumber sheds, as follows: Labor, trucking; labor, stacking; incidentals.

Also on this sheet under "sorting shed" hauling and stacking green lumber is represented the expense of the green lumber from the trimmer into the pile, and it is divided as follows: Labor, sorting shed; incidentals, sorting shed; labor, hauling to yard; labor, teams hauling to yard; incidentals, teams hauling to yard; labor, stacking.

On sheet No. 4 under "Hauling to Planer" is represented cost of hauling the lumber from the pile to the planing mill, which is divided as follows: Labor, hauling to planer; teams, hauling to planer; incidentals.

On this sheet planing mill operating is divided as follows: Labor; oil; belting; saws, knives and heads; insurance; electric light and water; machine shop; incidentals.

On sheet No. 5 shipping expense at the planing mill is represented by the cost of taking the lumber from the planing mill machines and loading in cars. In this department where it affects the planing mill it is divided as follows: Labor, trucking and loading; incidentals.

On this sheet also, under its heading, is shown the saw mill shipping expense, which takes care of the expense of shipping heavy timbers and is divided as follows: Labor, trucking and loading; labor, timber sizer; incidentals. Under this heading is also shown the number of cars shipped and the average feet a car.

On Sheet No. 6 is shown all items of expense that do not show in the other departments. Under this head comes: General expense; office expense; interest; lumber discount; sales expense; claims and shortages; insurance; taxes; depreciation.

There is then a recapitulation of all the accounts which shows not only the amount expended in each department but the total expense of the entire plant; also the average cost per thousand both log scale and board measure. They are also able to ascertain the percentage of the different grades shipped during the month and have a statement showing the different grades and the number of feet shipped, and opposite each item is the percentage.

The personality of Robert Alexander Long permeates every department of the Long-Bell Lumber Company and covers in great measure the history of all Long-Bell Lumber Company affiliations; so also does the personality of many other men who are closely allied with Mr. Long and who are masters each of some department of this great institution.

If it is the purpose of this article to show any one thing above another it is the single fact which knits the whole fabric together, namely the ability and the loyalty of these men who have been weighed in the balance and have not been found wanting.

Many scores of pictures of the people who make up the personnel of the Long-Bell Lumber Company and its affiliations, which are printed herewith in the illustrated story, will furnish the reader with much information about these men; but the reader is entitled to more than that. He is entitled to the story of the lives of these men; how they have arrived at positions of trust and how they have filled these positions. So with much more effort than is displayed in these lines of type which follow have been gathered together these stories. They are presented here simply and without embellishment or any attempt to flatter the individuals.

The average age of these lieutenants is thirty-seven years. These men have been associated with the Long-Bell-Lumber Company and its affiliations an average of nine years. Sixteen of these men whose biographies appear herewith have been associated with the company an average of seventeen years.

C. B. Sweet.
Every great business like that of the Long-Bell Lumber Company and its affiliations must not only have men on the "firing line" but must have a strong reserve over the hills ready to do battle with as much vigor and earnestness as do those who have just preceded them in the use of the guns. C. B. Sweet is such a man.

Mr. Sweet is a native of Illinois, born in Woodford county in 1861. He spent his boyhood and school days at Chenoa, Ill. After getting a common school education he passed a few years on the farm and with the Chicago & Alton Railway Company as agent. At the age of twenty-two he came west practically without funds to do battle with the world.

In 1884 Mr. Sweet started in the retail lumber business under the firm name of C. B. Sweet & Bro., and continued in this line until 1897. During these thirteen years his firm was closely connected with the Long-Bell Lumber Company, by haying competitive yards in a number of towns in Kansas and Oklahoma. From this acquaintance sprang the relationship that today exists between himself and the Long-Bell Lumber Company.

In January, 1898, the Hudson River Lumber Company was incorporated; R. A. Long president, C. B. Sweet vice president and general manager. Mr. Sweet took direct charge of the construction of the plant and of the production and marketing of its lumber. The company gained a wide and favorable reputation, some credit for which was given the management.

Early in 1891 Mr. Sweet was called to the Kansas City office and the position of general manager of the manufacturing and timber department, which included all Long-Bell Lumber Company alliances, was given him.

On the death of the much beloved S. H. Wilson, in 1903, Mr. Sweet was elected to fill the vacancy, that of vice president and assistant general manager of all the interests of the Long-Bell Lumber Company and its alliances.

Mr. Sweet has had practical experience in retail and wholesale, construction of manufacturing plants and their operation, and all details in connection with lumber; is a good judge of human nature and with natural executive ability has been successful in handling large numbers of men.

F. J. Bannister.
F. J. Bannister, the secretary and treasurer of the Long-Bell Lumber Company, is a director of that company; is secretary and a director of the Fidelity Land & Improvement Company; secretary, treasurer and director of the Fidelity Fuel Company, and a director of the Hudson River Lumber Company, the Globe Lumber Company, Limited, and the King-Ryder Lumber Company.

Mr. Bannister was born in Watertown, N. Y., in 1869 and when 7 years of age removed with his parents to Olathe, Kan., where he resided until 1880, when he went to Kansas City.

In 1885 he was employed by the Rogers Coal Company, afterwards the Kansas & Texas Coal Company, for two years being cashier at Hackett, Ark., where an extensive merchandise business and coal mines were operated. In 1889 he was employed by the Choctaw Coal Company, in the Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory. He returned to Kansas City in 1890 and became connected with the Kaw Valley Paint & Lead Company, of which company Victor B. Bell was the chief stockholder.

On August 22, 1892, Mr. Bannister began his service with the Long-Bell Lumber Company, first in the position of head bookkeeper, remaining with the accounting department until February, 1900, when he was elected assistant secretary of the company. In February, 1901, he was elected secretary of the company and in October, 1903, was chosen treasurer of the company.

In September, 1903, the Long-Bell Lumber Company purchased the lands and mining interests of the Fidelity Land & Improvement Company and Mr. Bannister was made manager of the operating department.

Mr. Bannister is a master of detail, as he is endowed with that rare quality of being both creative and analytical. These abilities, coupled with his superb health and virility, enable him to carry on his work in these various capacities with apparent ease.

C. A. White.
C. A. White, assistant secretary of the Long-Bell Lumber Company, is a grandson of the venerable Churchill J. White, a director of that company.

Mr. White is a native Missourian and was born in Kansas City in 1869. He attended the public schools of that city until he was sixteen years old and then spent three years at Washington and Lee university, at Lexington, Va.

After leaving school Mr. White accepted a position in the National Bank of Commerce, which position he held until 1895, when he left that bank to accept the position of chief clerk and cashier with the Missouri Gas Company.

In the spring of 1897, when the Missouri and Kansas City gas companies consolidated, Mr. White left their employ to accept a position with the Long-Bell Lumber Company. In February, 1901, Mr. White was made assistant secretary of the company.

Churchill J. White.
Churchill J. White, whose portrait appears in the great group on the first page of the American Lumberman of this issue, is the oldest member of the Long-Bell Lumber Company and its varied interests. R. A. Long is a nephew of Mr. White. It was through his uncle that Mr. Long received his first employment in Kansas City.

Mr. White was born in Kentucky in 1825 and came to Missouri in 1845. He began life with a clerkship and then gained a partnership in the business which he retained for fifteen years. He was then elected cashier of the Farmers Bank at Liberty, Mo.

In 1865 Mr. White moved to Kansas City and opened the Kansas City Savings Association, now the National Bank of Commerce, where he remained as cashier for twenty-eight years. At the end of that time he was elected president of the Citizens National Bank.

In 1896, in his seventy-second year, Mr. White retired from business in an active way, but he is now in his seventy-eighth year a director in the Long-Bell Lumber Company.

Victor B. Bell.
Victor B. Bell, one of the founders of the Long-Bell Lumber Company, was born at Princeton, Mo., in 1857, removing to Kansas City in 1873. After graduating at the University of Missouri in 1873 Mr. Bell graduated at the Harvard law school in 1878.

Mr. Bell was connected with the old Kansas City Savings bank as cashier after his graduation. This bank is now the National Bank of Commerce of Kansas City, one of the city’s prominent financial institutions.

Mr. Bell became interested with R. A. Long in the lumber business in 1875 and is now a large stockholder in the Long-Bell Lumber Company. Aside from his interest in the lumber business Mr. Bell is the largest individual holder of Kansas City real estate.

M. B. Nelson.
M. B. Nelson, superintendent of the wholesale department of the Long-Bell Lumber Company, was born at Independence, Ark., in 1872, spending his youth at Hot Springs, Ark. He was educated at Hot Springs and took a business course at Paris, Tex. He got the mining fever at the age of fourteen and started west. He drifted to Mexico, where he spent four years and a half in mining. He returned to the United States in 1891 and entered the employ of the New Boston Lumber Company, at New Boston, Tex., in July of that year. July 30, 1898, he resigned to accept the position of manager of the wholesale department of the Long-Bell Lumber Company. He was elected a director of the Long-Bell Lumber Company last year.

Robert Stack.
Robert Stack is closely allied with the magnificent system of reports and auditing of accounts which so simplifies the business of the Long-Bell Lumber Company and its many affiliations. Mr. Stack’s particular position is that of auditor of the manufacturing department in lumber. His desk is in the general office at Kansas City and he makes frequent trips to the mills. He is thoroughly familiar with every detail of the local system in each place which is a part of the administration of the one great system which all have adopted and which makes the administration of the vast business a very simple matter.

Robert Stack was born in Sparta, Wis., in November, 1871. He graduated from the Merrill (Wis.) high school and during his vacation worked in the old T. B. Scott Lumber Company’s lath mill at that point. After the young man left school he worked two years with G. Heywood & Son in the bank at Merrill. In 1889 he began work in the office of the T. B. Scott Lumber Company as office boy. He was ultimately invoice clerk and afterward became an assistant bookkeeper.

Mr. Stack left the T. B. Scott Lumber Company in 1893 and went with the John R. Davis Lumber Company, at Phillips, Wis., as invoice clerk; he was afterward bookkeeper. During the last year of his stay with this concern he had complete charge of the office and also the sales department, as well as being buyer of supplies for the camp. He remained with the John R. Davis Lumber Company until May 1, 1900, when he went with the Globe Lumber Company, Limited, at Yellow Pine, La., as bookkeeper, where he remained one year. Mr. Stack then came to the Long-Bell office in Kansas City in April, 1901, as auditor of the manufacturing department.

J. H. Foresman.
When J. H. Foresman came into the land of boards he lifted his feet from the furrow and took his hands from the plow. He is distinctively a self-made man and recites his origin and early environments with a frankness and cheerfulness that are certainly commendable. Mr. Foresman was born at Decatur, Ill., in 1863. He became identified with the Long-Bell Lumber Company October 9, 1889, succeeding T. H. Rogers as yard manager at Erie, Kan., Mr. Rogers having succeeded S. H. Wilson as auditor, Mr. Wilson quitting the road and taking charge of the retail interest of the Long-Bell Lumber Company, with headquarters at that time in Columbus, Kan. After remaining in Erie for three years Mr. Foresman took charge of the large yard of the Long-Bell Lumber Company at Joplin, Mo. This was in the winter of 1892. He held this position until the spring of 1901. At that time he was selected as one of the auditors of the Long-Bell Lumber Company and given charge of what is known as its central division, making his headquarters in Joplin.

Mr. Foresman was always recognized by Mr. Long as one of his most successful yard managers and he achieved a marked, success as auditor. In January, 1902, Mr. Long organized the Minnetonka Lumber Company with headquarters at Oklahoma City, O. T., and Mr. Foresman was elected secretary and general manager of that company. He also became one of the stockholders of the institution. Inside of two years the Minnetonka Lumber Company under his direction had acquired ten yards. It was in that position that Mr. Foresman really won his spurs in a lumber-commercial sense.

October 20, 1903, the Long-Bell Lumber Company selected Mr. Foresman to take full charge of all the retail interests of the company. Mr. Foresman came to Kansas City November 15, 1903, to assume his present duties. He was also at that time elected one of the directors of the company.

W. G. Cooksey.
W. G. Cooksey has been with the Long-Bell Lumber Company nearly all of his business life and is a living exemplar of the fact that corporations as well as individuals may reward ability. Plus his own native ability and his application to business Mr. Cooksey is distinctively a Long-Bell Lumber Company product.

Mr. Cooksey was born in Johnson county, Kansas, in 1864, reared on a farm and when twenty-two years of age became assistant manager of the Long-Bell Lumber Company at Caldwell, Kan. This was on November 17, 1886. He held this position until 1887, when he was placed in charge of the company’s yard at Dexter, Kan., at which place he remained until April, 1890, when the company closed its yard at that point.

Immediately after this, for four months he acted as relief agent, after which he returned to Caldwell as manager. He remained at this place until November 1, 1899, when he was appointed traveling auditor of the western division, with twenty-three yards under his supervision. He held this position until November 15, 1903, when he was appointed secretary and general manager of the Minnetonka Lumber Company, succeeding J. H. Foresman.

P. P. Lewis.
P. P. Lewis, purchasing agent of the retail department of the Long-Bell Lumber Company at the general office in Kansas City, was born in Budford, Ont.

He was married at the age of twenty-two, settled on a farm and followed the vocation of a farmer until 1883, when he sold out, came west and entered the employ of the G. B. Shaw Lumber Company as assistant-manager, at Olathe, Kan. After three months he was transferred to the Caldwell (Kan.) yard of D. B. Shaw & Co., where he remained until the fall of 1885, when he resigned his position and entered the employ of the Long-Bell Lumber Company.

His first position with the Long-Bell Lumber Company was as manager of a yard at Bluff City, Kan., in which position he continued for ten years, when he was transferred to Garnett, Kan. After three months’ service at Garnett he was called in to the general office in Kansas City, where he reported in January, 1896, becoming checker of yard reports and holding that position three years.

In 1899 the business of the Long-Bell Lumber Company had grown to such magnitude that it decided to organize a purchasing department and Mr. Lewis was made purchasing agent, which position he has filled satisfactorily ever since.

E. R. Rogers.
E. R. Rogers, purchasing agent and manager of the Pacific coast office of the Long-Bell Lumber Company, Tacoma, Wash., is a native of the Badger state, having been born at Sheboygan Falls, Wis., January 17, 1860.

Mr. Rogers has been connected directly or indirectly with woodworking interests ever since he left school and learned all the details of the lumber business by experience. He has handled all kinds of wood products sash and doors from cypress panels to redwood plank.

Until the removal of the family from Wisconsin to Texas Mr. Rogers followed the business of building and contracting, handling sash and doors direct from the factory. This was followed by service in the general office of the late William Cameron, of Waco, Tex. Mr. Rogers subsequently became traveling salesman for the Paine Lumber Company, covering the territory from Wisconsin to the gulf of Mexico, and later on entered the employ of the Bluff City Lumber Company, of Pine Bluff, Ark., as traveling salesman in the western states.

All these engagements brought him in close touch with the lumber interests of adjacent territory and with practical lumbermen. It was a splendid opportunity for a keen and active man to study actual conditions and become a master in his profession.

For a time Mr. Rogers left the road in an active sense and opened an office in Wichita, Kan., where he sold lumber on commission. He continued this business for several years and his work in that line was terminated by his acceptance of his present position in October, 1894, as purchasing agent and manager of the Pacific coast office of the Long-Bell Lumber Company, and he is regarded as pure gold by Mr. Long.

W. R. Cowley.
The venerable and yet virile and active W. R. Cowley, general attorney of the Long-Bell Lumber Company, was born in Holbeach, Lincolnshire, England, April 23, 1843, hence is now sixty-one years of age. Mr. Cowley has been a very close student of law for a number of years. His thorough knowledge in his profession attracted the attention of R. A. Long, the manager of R. A. Long & Co., when their business was first established in Columbus in 1875. His services were commanded to the extent needed until 1891, at which time his entire time was employed, as it has been from that day. Mr. Cowley has spared no expense in building up his library preparatory to his needs and now has one of the most complete law libraries in Kansas City. Having been a very close student and an excellent judge of law, and having devoted his entire time for about thirteen years to the legal business of the Long-Bell Lumber Company, it is doubted by the general manager, Mr. Long, if a lawyer in the United States could be found who understood more thoroughly the legal needs and protection of a lumber company whose business covers the territory, so to speak, from tree to trade, as does this worthy gentleman, and hence he is considered a permanent and necessary fixture of the Long-Bell Lumber Company.

Lawrence L. Cowley.
Lawrence L. Cowley, assistant general attorney for the Long-Bell Lumber Company, is a son of the Hon. W. R. Cowley, general attorney for the Long-Bell Lumber Company, and was born in Columbus, Kan., in 1877. His primary education was begun in the city schools of Columbus and continued at Akron, Ohio, and Lawrence, Kan. After graduating at the Lawrence high school Mr. Cowley attended the University of Kansas, from which institution he was graduated in 1899 with the degree of Bachelor of Arts.

His professional education was obtained in the University of Kansas, and was graduated from the law school in 1901 with the degree of Bachelor of Law.

June 5, 1901, Mr. Cowley was admitted to practice in the supreme court of Kansas and in July of the same year he located at Perry, Okla., where he was admitted to practice in the district supreme court.

Mr. Cowley looks closely after the legal business of the Long-Bell Lumber Company and the Minnetonka Lumber Company in Oklahoma and Indian territories.

A. C. Hooper.
A. C. Hooper, chief clerk of the wholesale department of the Long-Bell Lumber Company at Kansas City, Mo., is a native of Indiana and was born in Knox county in 1866. He went west in the spring of 1881 and located at Mound Valley, Kan., where he entered the employ of S. A. Brown & Co., lumber and grain dealers, in the capacity of yard man and grain buyer. Two years later he was transferred to their plant at Altamont, Kan., and promoted to be local manager of their lumber and grain business there.

The business of S. A. Brown & Co. being discontinued six months later he accepted a position with R. L. Sharp as local manager at Altamont and Edna, Kan. He was with Mr. Sharp until April 6, 1886, when he entered the employ of the Long-Bell Lumber Company at Independence, Kan., and has since been continuously with that company, with the exception of two years, 1898 and 1899.

H. N. Ashby.
H. N. Ashby, manager of sales in the tie and timber department under the direction of Superintendent M. B. Nelson, entered the employ of the Long-Bell Lumber Company at Texarkana, its southern office, in 1898, as order and invoice clerk, where he remained until January, 1901, at which time he was promoted to the position of buyer, with headquarters at Lake Charles, La. He resigned that position in February, 1902, to enter the employ of the United Lumber & Export Company at Beaumont, Tex., as buyer and in charge of cargo shipments to Mexico, where he remained until May 15 of the same year. At that time he entered the employ of the Kirby Lumber Company sales department, his work being largely among its mills looking after shipments of timber and export material.

Mr. Ashby remained with the Kirby Lumber Company until November 1, 1902, when he returned to the Long-Bell Lumber Company as manager of its office at Texarkana, where he remained until this branch was discontinued. In May, 1903, he came to the general office at Kansas City to assume his present position.

W. A. Anderson.
W. A. Anderson, manager of sales for the coast lumber and shingle department of the Long-Bell Lumber Company, at Kansas City, under the direction of Superintendent M. B. Nelson, is a native of Chicago, Ill., having been born in the year 1870.

Mr. Anderson entered the employ of the Long-Bell Lumber Company as bookkeeper and stenographer at its mill located at Van Buren, Ark. He left this position in August, 1896, on account of ill health. He re-entered the employ of the Long-Bell Lumber Company on June 1, 1897, in the wholesale office at Kansas City, and for a little over a year and a half looked after the work of soliciting orders by writing personal letters to the trade. In March, 1899, he entered the employ of the Kansas City & Southern Lumber Company at Kansas City, Mo., as bookkeeper. He was later on made traffic man. He remained with that company, whose name was afterwards changed to the Culver Lumber & Manufacturing Company, until July, 1902, when he re-entered the employ of the Long-Bell Lumber Company.

J. E. Marrs.
J. E. Marrs, of Winfield, Kan., has charge of what is known as the central division of the Long-Bell Lumber Company’s retail yards. It consists of eleven yards in Oklahoma Territory and six yards in Kansas.

Mr. Marrs is a native of Carthage, Jasper county, Missouri, and was born in 1867.

From school he entered the employ of the Webb City Lumber Company, at Webb City, as bookkeeper and collector, remaining about two years, after which he left the Webb City company and took a position with the Tenney-Anderson Lumber Company, of Fort Smith, Ark.

When the Cherokee strip was opened it seemingly offered many inducements to Mr. Marrs and he applied to the Long-Bell Lumber Company for a position and was employed as bookkeeper in its Pond Creek (Okla.) yard. He has been with the Long-Bell Lumber Company all of the time since the date of his first employment and has held several positions, being promoted from time to time until he reached the position he now occupies as auditor.

J. W. Deal.
J. W. Deal is the auditor of the eastern division of the Long-Bell Lumber Company, with residence at Independence, Kan. All of the yards of Mr. Deal’s division, eighteen in number, are in Kansas.

Mr. Deal began his business career at the age of eighteen as manager of the lumber yard belonging to Thompson & Blincoe, at Guthrie, Okla. This position he held for five years. He left Guthrie in 1897 and went to Burlingame, Kan. He was in the employ of D. J. Fair at that place for three years, holding the position of bookkeeper for six months and then taking charge of the yard.

In the spring of 1900 Mr. Deal entered the employ of the Long-Bell Lumber Company and returned to Oklahoma to take charge of the El Reno yard. He held this position until January, 1902, when he assumed his present position.

Edward S. Hackett.
Edward S. Hackett has been with the Long-Bell Lumber Company since April 1, 1900, and is at present auditor of the western division of its retail yards, which position he has held since January 1, 1904. He is a native Kansan and was born in 1877.

Mr. Hackett’s lumber career began with L. R. Getchell & Son, at Williamsburg, Kan., in 1896. In 1898 Mr. Hackett went with the Antrim Lumber Company, Antrim, La., going into the mill for active experience in the manufacture of lumber. In the fall of 1898 he went with the Brown Supply Company, of Coffeyville, Kan., and remained with that company one and a half years.

The western division of the Long-Bell Lumber Company comprises fourteen yards, over which Mr. Hackett has charge as auditor.

G. H. Marine.
G. H. Marine entered the employ of the Long-Bell Lumber Company sales department during the early days of April, 1904, and covers the oil, gas and mineral belt in the states of Kansas and Missouri, with headquarters at Parsons, Kan.

Mr. Marine has had experience in the lumber business all along the line, particularly in the retail end.

He is thoroughly familiar with the management of a well kept retail yard, which makes him a very valuable addition to the ranks of the Long-Bell Lumber Company salesmen.

While a new man with his present employers he has in the past been connected with first class, up to date concerns in very important positions.

Will M. Beebe.
The athletic, aggressive and intellectual Will M. Beebe is the representative of the Long-Bell Lumber Company at Omaha, Neb.

Mr. Beebe was born in Kentucky thirty-two years ago and was educated at Hedding college, Abingdon, Ill., and at Ann Arbor, Mich. Mr. Beebe has had experience in the manufacturing end of the yellow pine business at the different mills in Arkansas and Alabama and has represented the Long-Bell Lumber Company at Omaha for the past three years. Prior to that Mr. Beebe sold yellow pine lumber for the Monarch Lumber Company, of St. Louis.

Mr. Beebe’s father was a lumberman, first in business at Troy, N. Y., and afterwards at Chicago and at other Illinois points for many years.

Mr. Beebe is a practical lumberman, a natural salesman and a man of strong individuality and charming personality.

L. C. Lingham.
L. C. Lingham, who has for the last two years been representing the Long-Bell Lumber Company in Iowa and northern Missouri, with headquarters at St. Joseph, Mo., is a native of Belleville, Ont., where his father manufactured white pine lumber. He remained in Canada until twenty years of age, when he went to the Pacific coast and was employed by the West Coast Lumber Company at San Diego, Cal., for several years.

After leaving California Mr. Lingham traveled in South America three years selling Oregon pine in cargo lots and afterwards made a trip to South Africa and Australia.

W. L. Hazen.
W. L. Hazen is sales agent for the Long-Bell Lumber Company in the territory embracing Kansas City and nearby points. He is a native of Cincinnati, Ohio. His connection with the Long-Bell Lumber Company dates from 1891. He represented the company on the road for a time, traveling in Kansas, also representing the company in Wichita. He came to Kansas City first to act as secretary and manager of the Pacific Coast Lumber & Supply Company, one of the Long-Bell Lumber Company alliances, which position he held for a period of about ten years.

Edwin Rand.
His legion of friends in the south and southwest have called Mr. Rand by his first name for so long and have spelled it "Ed" for so long a time without even putting in the period following the letter "d" that it is not at all improbable that 90 percent of the people who read this article will not know until they see it in cold type that his first name is as it stands at the head of this brief sketch. It is a small name for a big man and it would be small if it were four times as long considering its relation to the person to whom it belongs if it was expected the size of the name would describe the man in his many and varied abilities and the place occupied by him among men in the southwestern yellow pine empire.

Mr. Rand is a Texan-Irishman by adoption and a Mississippian by birth. His father was a planter, born in Raleigh, N.C., in 1822, and is still living in eastern Texas near Atlanta, Cass county, going about his work with greater activity than most men of half his age.

Edwin Rand was educated in the common schools of Cass county. In 1870 he went to the Douglasville high school and spent two years in that institution. He then went to work for General Waterhouse at Dennison, Tex., in the general merchandise business. Young Rand was in the warehouse department of General Waterhouse’s business and stayed with him until 1876.

In 1876 Edwin Rand formed a partnership with C. C. Galloway and went into the cordwood, timber and tie business on the Texas & Pacific railroad. About that time the Texas & Pacific road was extended from Dallas to El Paso. The firm Galloway & Rand was domiciled at Kildare, Tex.

Later the company also had a mill at Queen City, Tex., on the same road, and when the timber was sawed out the partnership ended. Afterwards Edwin Rand organized the Atlanta Bank at Atlanta, Tex.

Mr. Rand was president of the Atlanta Bank two or three years and during that time the bank took charge of the Atlanta mills and ran them from 1891 to 1894. In 1890 Mr. Rand built the Texas, Arkansas & Louisiana railroad, running in an easterly direction through corners of the states of Texas and Arkansas into Louisiana.

In the course of events the bank got into business with the road and the Atlanta Lumber Company became the Atlanta Lumber Mills. The road is now a traffic line between Atlanta and Bloomburg, Tex. Mr. Rand operated that business until May, 1899, when he came to Woodworth. In the meantime he became interested in the organization of the Rapides Lumber Company, Limited, which started in 1890.

Mr. Rand owns one-third of the stock of the Rapides Lumber Company, Limited; is a stockholder in the Rapides Bank, of Alexandria, and in the San Juan sugar operations near Vera Cruz, Mexico.

Edwin Rand is a man of strong personality and has come into his own by hard fought and continuous battle in the commercial world, and accepts his honors and emoluments with the easy grace guaranteed to him by his long line of successful ancestors.

Harry Tapley Rand.
Harry Tapley Rand, son of Edwin Rand, was born at Kildare, Tex., in 1878 and went to school there until he was seventeen years old. He then spent two years in the University of Georgetown, Texas.

His first connection with commercial affairs was store work at Kildare. He is a natural mechanic and has great versatility along all mechanical lines.

Mr. Rand is assistant manager of the Rapides Lumber Company, Limited, at Woodworth, La.

Frank J. Hortig.
Frank J. Hortig is sales manager of the Rapides Lumber Company, Limited, of Woodworth, La., and is a native Louisianian, having been born at Lake Charles in 1876.

Mr. Hortig is an American by descent on his father’s side, his father having been a noted civil engineer under the late Emperor Maximilian of Mexico. The young man was educated at the Brothers’ school of Lake Charles until he was twelve years old and then went to the College of the Holy Cross at New Orleans. He was there for three years and got a commercial education. When he left school he went to work for the Norris Mills, at Westlake, La., as bookkeeper. He stayed there four years, or until he went to the Crowell & Spencer Lumber Company’s place at Long Leaf, La. He was with this concern for three or four years and did the correspondence and attended to business matters connected with that department. Altogether Mr. Hortig has had a very liberal education.

He came to the Rapides Lumber Company, Limited, in January, 1900, as general sales agent.

Thomas Aldridge.
Thomas Aldridge, who is agent of the Rapides Lumber Company, Limited, of Woodworth, La., for the state of Texas, is a native of Missouri and was born in 1872.

His lumber experience was first as saw foreman in the woods and later as timekeeper and assistant bookkeeper. Since then Mr. Aldridge has learned the lumber business by painstaking efforts, taking in every department of the business and in every capacity under the saw and planing mill sheds, with the exception of sawing and filing.

Mr. Aldridge has been identified with the Rapides Lumber Company, Limited, for the last four years. He is one of the most successful lumber salesmen in Texas, where his acquaintance socially and among the retail lumber trade in a business way is only limited by the number of people engaged in the business in that southwestern empire.

William F. Ryder.
William Francis Ryder has been longer in continuous employment of and association with R. A. Long than any of the Long-Bell Lumber Company lieutenants. This association, which has been uniformly pleasant, began twenty-three years ago.

Mr. Ryder was born in Dallas county, Iowa, on the last day of 1858.

From 1878 to 1881 Mr. Ryder was situated at Ponca, I.T., forty-five miles south of Arkansas City, in connection with the government Indian agency at that place. He left there and went to Columbus, Kan., engaging in the hay business and in 1881 began what has since been many years of his life work with R. A. Long, first going to Opolis, Kan., to take charge of a retail yard. Mr. Ryder was at Opolis until 1887, when a yard was opened at Cedarvale, Kan. He was at Cedarvale until the spring of 1890, when he was sent to Antlers, I. T., in charge of all the saw mills owned by the Long-Bell people in the Indian Territory. He was there until January, 1894, when he was sent to Willow Springs, Mo., to take charge of and ship out a stock of lumber which had been purchased from the South Missouri Lumber Company, then out of business. When that stock was disposed of he traveled for the Long-Bell Lumber Company until December, 1896, when he was transferred to Thomasville, I. T., to take joint charge with W. S. King of the then rapidly growing business of the Long-Bell Lumber Company in that section.

Burton H. Smith.
Burton Hayes Smith, vice president and general manager of the King-Ryder Lumber Company, at Bonami, La., is a lumberman by inheritance and precept. Once on a time many years ago his father Ishi Smith, a Michigan man by birth, operated a carpenter shop on the site of what is now McVicker’s theater in the city of Chicago, in the heart of what is now the "loop" district.

B. H. Smith was born in Chicago in 1866. The subject of this sketch was educated in the Englewood high school. He put in his vacation times in advertising matters. The first business venture young Smith made was the Englewood directory of 1884.

Mr. Smith began his lumber career for the Sawyer-Goodman Company, of Chicago, trucking and stacking lumber in its yard on Twenty-second street and working at anything that tended to give him an insight into the lumber business. After his experience with the Sawyer-Goodman Company he was a year and a half with J. Badenoch, jr., as shipping clerk and estimator. He left Mr. Badenoch in the spring of 1886 and went to Blue Hill, Neb., in Webster county, south of Hastings. Mr. Smith and his father put in a yard. The firm name was I. Smith & Son. The business was incorporated as the I. Smith & Son Company and the company put in altogether fourteen yards in Nebraska.

On December 31, 1893, Mr. Smith went to work for the Long-Bell Lumber Company as treasurer of the Pacific Coast Lumber & Supply Company, of Kansas City, Mo. He was there until September, 1895, when he went to Texarkana to take charge of the Sabine Valley Lumber Company. He remained with that company until February, 1898, and since then has been with the King-Ryder Lumber Company.

Henry E. Sweet.
Henry Elston Sweet, secretary and general manager of the Hudson River Lumber Company, at DeRidder, Ark., is a native of Illinois. He was born in Woodford county, in 1862.

H. E. Sweet attended school at Chenoa until he was twelve years old and then returned to Washburn, the place of his birth, for three years. From there the family went on a farm for six years.

At twenty years of age H. E. Sweet moved to Cherryvale, Kan., where he went into the lumber business. The firm was C.

B. Sweet & Co., H. E. Sweet going into partnership with his brother, C. B. Sweet.

In 1889 the two brothers started a yard at Pittsburg, Kan., under the firm name of C. B. Sweet & Bro. In 1890 they started a retail yard at Weir City, Kan.

H. E. Sweet was at Weir City until 1898 and then went to Pittsburg and ran the yard there until May, 1901. Mr. Sweet was then made secretary and manager of the Hudson River Lumber Company, then at Hudson, Ark. That is still his title with the Hudson River Lumber Company. Mr. Sweet is a man who has a personal hold of every part of the great business at DeRidder, La., and in a most forceful manner has prosecuted that business up to its present plane of success in the lumber world.

C. A. Paxson.
C. A. Paxson, treasurer of the Hudson River Lumber Company, at DeRidder, La., was born in Iowa in 1864.

In 1884 Mr. Paxson went into the bank as office and collection boy and in two months was made bookkeeper and later assistant cashier. This place he filled until August, 1895, when he moved to Weir City, Kan., and engaged in mercantile business.

In August, 1896, Mr. Paxson connected himself with the Deming Investment Company, at Oswego, Kan., as bookkeeper. On March 1, 1898, he resigned this position and connected himself with the Hudson River Lumber Company as bookkeeper and a couple of years later was elected treasurer of that company. He is a stockholder in the Hudson River Lumber Company.

G. W. Gittings.
G. W. Gittings, superintendent of the sales department of the Hudson River Lumber Company at DeRidder, La., is a native of Illinois and was born in 1865 in Anderson county.

January 1, 1885, Mr. Gittings accepted a position as cashier of the bank at Osage Mission, Kansas, and was there during 1885 and 1886 and until March, 1887. In 1889 Mr. Gittings applied to R. A. Long, of the Long-Bell Lumber Company, for a position and was made assistant yard manager at Weir City, Kan. A few days after he went to work he was called to the general office at Columbus, Kan. From January 1, 1889, until the fall of 1892 Mr. Gittings was bookkeeper.

In 1892 Mr. Gittings went into the wholesale department under C. D. Morris, at Kansas City, and remained as long as Mr. Morris remained manager. When Mr. Morris went to Thomasville, I. T., Mr. Gittings succeeded to his position.

Mr. Gittings left Kansas City in 1898 and went to Thomasville with the King-Ryder Lumber Company and was there eighteen months.

On January 1 he accepted a position with the Hudson River Lumber Company, then at Hudson, Ark., as superintendent of sales, moving with the company to DeRidder, La.

George X. Wendling.
George X. Wendling, one of the directors of the Weed Lumber Company, was born in New York city September 12, 1861. With his parents he removed to Keokuk, Iowa, in 1864, where he grew up and attended the public schools. When 15 years of age he entered the lumber business in the employ of the C. W. Goodlander Lumber Company, at Weir City, Kan. After three years of service with that company he went to the Long-Bell Lumber Company as assistant manager of its retail yard at Cherryvale, Kan., being later made agent at Walnut, Kan., and also at Caldwell, the same state.

In January, 1888, he went to California, where he engaged in the retail lumber business at Fresno, with Prescott & Pierce, afterwards forming the Wendling Lumber Company at Hanford, Cal., and was its vice president and general manager. This company catered to the fruit growing interests and supplied a large part of the demand for fruit box material. On February 10, 1897, Mr. Wendling assumed the management of the Pine Box Manufacturers’ Agency and his experience in handling boxes was of great value to that organization. In order, however, to look after his own affairs more closely he resigned in November, 1899, and reorganized the Wendling Lumber Company, increasing its capital to $500,000.

During the last few years Mr. Wendling has acquired several large lumber interests, among which is the Wendling Redwood Shingle Company, of which he is president. In April, 1903, he assisted in organizing the Weed Lumber Company, with a capital stock of $2,000,000, a more complete history of which is given elsewhere in this article.

Mr. Wendling is of a forceful, energetic type and having made the lumber industry in all its branches a life study it is not necessary to state that he is a successful man.

A. L. Sweet.
A. L. Sweet, with headquarters at Pittsburg, Kan., travels in eastern Kansas, southwestern Missouri, northeastern Indian Territory and northwestern Arkansas for the Hudson River Lumber Company, of DeRidder, La. Mr. Sweet was born in Indiana some thirty years ago.

In 1890 he went into the lumber business, getting his first experience in the retail lumber yard of C. B. Sweet & Bro., at Pittsburg, Kan. He left this firm to take service with the National Bank of Pittsburg, which institution released him so that he. might connect himself in 1898 with the Hudson River Lumber Company at its Hudson (Ark.) plant, at that time under the personal management and direction of C. B. Sweet. In different capacities he has remained with this company ever since. At present his mission in a commercial sense is to permit a choice few of his friends to buy the superior stock manufactured by the Hudson River Lumber Company.

George S. Hayes.
George S. Hayes travels for the Hudson River Lumber Company in the territory of northern Kansas with headquarters at Topeka.

Mr. Hayes is a native of Indiana and came to the Hudson River Lumber Company four years ago as a laborer. He had a good education and other qualifications and was advanced first to the office, then to the sales department and later to the position of traveling representative.

Mr. Hayes’ education in lumber manufacture has been so thorough and painstaking in every particular that he has a brilliant future before him as a lumberman. He knows the business in its slightest and also most complex details. He is only 24 years old, but has accomplished more than many men who have lived to middle life.

J. W. Martin.
J. W. Martin, treasurer and general manager of the Globe Lumber Company, Limited, was born in Rochester, N. Y., fifty-one years ago last April. Mr. Martin is a very much alive example of what a man can accomplish with proper ambition and good judgment to carry forward his purposes. At the age of 20 years he went directly to the lumbering country of Michigan and for thirty-one years has been engaged in every phase of the lumbering business known in this country east of the Rocky Mountains.

"The Blazed Trail" has been his in actual life. Mr. Martin worked in the north Michigan woods when lumber was hauled on sleds; when a three-million foot job was a big one and when timber located more than five miles from the railroad was deemed unavailable. His has been the work of cutting and hauling logs, loading them and driving logs in the river. He has held the position of camp foreman, river foreman, yard foreman and engineer in the saw mill; in fact, has filled all positions connected with the lumber business.

In 1889 Mr. Martin went to southern Missouri and became connected with the Ozark Lumber Company, of Winona. He was with that concern for six years. Later he was with the Missouri Lumber & Mining Company.

He was the first inspector for the six large yellow pine mills in Missouri. His work attracted the attention of the Southern Lumber Manufacturers’ Association, which decided to do work along similar lines. Mr. Martin was appointed by a convention which met at Memphis in 1898 to superintend a group of mills in Arkansas to revise the grades of manufacture along lines similar to those followed in Missouri. The work was eminently satisfactory and the Southern Lumber Manufacturers' Association employed three men and sent them to Missouri to work under Mr. Martin’s instructions and get an idea of how the work was done in Missouri for use among the larger association members.

What has followed since in the way of uniform grading is history.

Mr. Martin had charge of the plant of the Central Coal & Coke Company at Neame, La., where he remained until March, 1901, when he went to Kennard, Tex., and laid the foundation for the big mill at that place. He severed his connection with the Central Coal & Coke Company July 1, 1901, to take charge of the plant of the Globe Lumber Company, Limited, at Yellow Pine, La.

S. T. Woodring.
S. T. Woodring, secretary of the Globe Lumber Company, Limited, at Yellow Pine, La., has exclusive charge of the sales department of that business. Mr. Woodring’s extensive dealings with the saw mill business of the south early persuaded him that the best possible way to handle the sales of a yellow pine concern was to do it directly from where the lumber was produced.

Working along these lines he in 1901 accepted a position with the Globe Lumber Company, Limited, as manager of sales and was shortly thereafter elected secretary of that company.

Mr. Woodring was born in Lawrence county, Indiana, April 14, 1868. When he was 16 years old he accepted a position with G. B. Shaw & Co., at that time very extensive line yard operators in Kansas. He remained with the Shaw company but a few months when the yard at which he was stationed passed to the ownership of S. A. Brown & Co. The young man was probably not in the invoice but somehow or other he went along with the goods and chattels.

At the age of 17 years Mr. Woodring was given the management of a retail yard and continued with S. A. Brown & Co. in that capacity until the business was discontinued. Within a week after the failure of S. A. Brown & Co. he found a position as yard manager with the Long-Bell Lumber Company and was employed in that capacity for four years, when he was transferred to Texarkana, Ark. to take the management of the Sabine Valley Lumber Company, one of the Long-Bell Lumber Company’s wholesale offices.

Mr. Woodring is an expert in the matter of handling correspondence and conducting the details of a business scattered as widely as is that of the Globe Lumber Company, Limited.

J. W. Cleland.
J. W. Cleland, residing at Decatur, Ill., represents the Globe Lumber Company, Limited, of Yellow Pine, La., in the territory of central Illinois.

Mr. Cleland was born in Tuscarawas county, Ohio, and early in his life his people moved to the northwestern part of Ohio and in Defiance county his father operated a saw mill. Young Cleland occupied his time until he was 18 years of age in going to school and working in the mill and on the farm.

Mr. Cleland’s first position in Missouri was clerking in a general merchandise store at Warrensburg. For two years he farmed on his own account and taught school winters. He then went to Fort Scott, Kan., and with other parties started a retail lumber business in a small way. From there he went into similar business at Nevada, Mo., alone, on his own account. The business prospered and was extended until five yards were operated in the surrounding territory. When one of these yards was closed the remaining yards were united with other interests in the Home Lumber Company, Mr. Cleland being made president and manager. This business was further extended and twelve yards were operated. After disposing of these interests, in November, 1901, he engaged with the Globe Lumber Company, Limited, and has so continued since then.

Frank J. Shields.
Frank J. Shields, who represents the Globe Lumber Company, Limited, of Yellow Pine, La., in central and southern Indiana, with headquarters at Indianapolis, was born at Le Roy, Mich., June 6, 1879.

He graduated at the high school of Le Roy in his twentieth year and turned his attention at once to the lumber business, accepting a position with the Central Coal & Coke Company, at Neame, La., where he remained for a year. He then went back to Michigan, where he took a year’s commercial course in the Ferris institute at Big Rapids.

After taking his commercial course Mr. Shields felt well equipped to take hold of the affairs of life and returned to the south to learn the lumber business from the stump to the dealer, accepting a position with his present employers. After he had remained in the mill for nearly three years in various capacities calculated to develop him into a well informed lumberman he was offered and accepted the position he now holds.

Not many young men have had such opportunities to develop as has Mr. Shields. His years of training at the mill have fitted him to be of more service to his customers than are salesmen generally.

J. C. Light.
J. C. Light became connected with the Globe Lumber Company, Limited, of Yellow Pine, La., July 1, 1902, as its representative in southeastern Kansas and southwestern Missouri. He traveled this territory continuously in the interim, having headquarters at Nevada, Mo.

Mr. Light was born in Edwards county, Illinois, in March, 1857, and with his parents emigrated to Barton county, Missouri, in 1868. In 1878 he entered the lumber business with C. M. Robinson, operating a retail lumber yard at Lamar, Mo. In 1879 the C. M. Robinson business was merged into the Robinson Lumber Company, with headquarters at Nevada. Mr. Light was transferred to the headquarters place of business, where he remained but a short time, being made manager of one of the company’s retail yards.

Mr. Light continued as a retail yard manager without interruption until July 1, 1902, and it is with credit said of him that during the hard times experienced in the ’90s his business always showed a profit.

R. S. Davis.
R. S. Davis was born in Pittsburg, Pa., January 8, 1865, and was educated in the Pittsburg public schools.

He is distinctively and particularly a railroad man and began as a railroad boy. In 1879 he was messenger for the Pittsburg & Lake Erie railroad general freight office at Pittsburg, Pa. He held various clerical positions with the Pittsburg & Lake Erie Railroad Company and continued with that company until in September, 1882, he became contracting agent for the New York, Lake Erie & Western Railroad Company (now the Erie road), in its general office at Pittsburg.

In April, 1884, he became contracting agent for the St. Louis & Southwestern railway. In October, 1887, he became general agent of the St. Louis & Southwestern railway at Cincinnati. January 1, 1891, he became assistant freight agent for the St. Louis & Southwestern railway at St. Louis and on April 1, 1894, he became general freight agent of that line, in which station he remained until April 1, 1901.

From June 1, 1901, to October 1, 1902, he was engaged in mercantile pursuits at Pittsburg. From October 1, 1902, to July 25, 1903, he was with the Frisco system in Pittsburg. On August 1, 1903, Mr. Davis was made traffic manager of the Long-Bell railway system, which position he now holds.

C. C. Whitehead.
C. C. Whitehead was born in Liverpool, Ill., November 11, 1873. His early education was obtained by attending the common schools at Liverpool; from there he went to the Canton (Ill.) high school and afterward to the commercial college at Canton.

In 1903 Mr. Whitehead entered the employ of the Long-Bell Lumber Company to look after its mining and timber interests in New Mexico. In June of the same year he returned to Kansas City and has since been employed at the home office until June of the present year, at that time being transferred to the office of the Fidelity Land & Improvement Company.

L. R. Fifer.
L. R. Fifer, who has for the past two years filled a position as traveling salesman for the Long-Bell Lumber Company, is a native of Ohio and has from his boyhood days been connected in one way or another with the lumber business. In his early boyhood he commenced in the manufacturing department which he studied until by experience he was familiar with it in all its details. His ability being recognized he was advanced from one department to another and has mastered all of the ins and outs of the lumber business.

Abner Weed.
Abner Weed was born at Dixmont, Me., September 18, 1842, and comes of the sturdy stock which is so typical of that state. Mr. Weed’s early training was on a farm, where he remained until about twenty-one years of age. About that time the civil war broke out, and Mr. Weed, being of a nature that naturally abhorred slavery, joined the army, serving with Grant in the army until the close of the war.

Mr. Weed came to California in 1859 with his family, going to Mendocino county. His first work in the lumber business was splitting railroad ties; the saw mills at that period were few and far between and the small circular sawyer was unable to cope with the giant redwood.

In 1870 Mr. Weed moved to Truckee, Cal., and located in the sugar and white pine district, taking a position as teamster in the logging camps. Later on he began taking contracts to get in logs for the various mills, finally becoming recognized as one of the most expert and successful loggers on the Pacific coast.

In 1890 Mr. Weed was engaged in the saw milling business in the redwoods of Sonoma county, he furnishing part of the capital and all of the practical experience. This venture, however, was a very unsuccessful one and at the end of the second year he had nothing left but his experience. He then went to Siskiyou county, California, and took up logging contracts, and after three years of that character of work bought a small circular mill and again embarked in business for himself. Little by little he enlarged his plant and between the years of 1890 and 1900 he spent his time studying the topography of the country and location of the timber belt with the determination of securing a timber holding of sufficient magnitude to justify his continuance in the lumber business on a scale commensurate with his capacity developed during thirty years of lumbering operations in every branch of the business from the felling of the tree to the executive management of a big plant.

The result of all these years of experience was the incorporation of the Weed Lumber Company, which took place in March, 1903, with a capital stock of $1,000,000, and of which Mr. Weed is president.

C. P. Perkinson.
C. P. Perkinson, auditor of the Sibley, Lake Bistineau & Southern Railway Company, was born in Petersburg, Va., May 15, 1867. Mr. Perkinson's business experience began when he was eight years of age, his first employment being that of cash boy in a large dry goods store in Atlanta, Ga. He later removed to Camden, Ark., and was employed as a Western Union messenger, finally entering the station service of the St. Louis Iron Mountain & Southern railway, which was the beginning of his railroad experience. He filled several different positions with various roads, and in the spring of 1903 connected himself with the Sibley, Lake Bistineau & Southern Railway as auditor.

E. R. Dusky.
E. R. Dusky, general sales manager of the Fidelity Land & Improvement Company -- the coal branch of the Long-Bell Lumber Company affiliated concerns -- has held that position since 1901. He was born in St. Louis April 6, 1872; was educated at the public schools at Waverly, Mo., and graduated from Wentworth Military Academy in 1890.

Mr. Dusky entered the service of the Riverside Coal & Mining Company at Hodge, Mo., after his graduation and was with that company two years. He was connected with the Pittsburg & Midway Coal Company at Kansas City for four years and after that with the Kansas & Texas Coal Company at Kansas City for five years. He came from the Kansas & Texas Coal Company to the Fidelity Land & Improvement Company.

L. L. Chipman.
L. L. Chipman, of the Fidelity Land & Improvement Company, came to that company as division sales agent from the Kansas & Texas Coal Company in 1901. At that time Mr. Chipman had been with the Kansas & Texas Coal Company for four years.

Mr. Chipman was born in Minneapolis, Kan., in 1880. After his school days Mr. Chipman went to work with the Memphis Railroad Company as yard clerk, but after one year’s service he resigned to enter the coal business.

Mr. Chipman is now a division sales agent of the Fidelity Land & Improvement Company, one of the Long-Bell Lumber Company’s strongest affiliations.

The saw mills of the Long-Bell Lumber Company are situated at Woodworth, La.; at Bonami, La.; at DeRidder, La.; at Yellow Pine, La.; and at Weed, Siskiyou county, California.

The yellow pine manufacturing plants will be described in their order in this department and a description of the Weed Lumber Company will be printed under the head of the Pacific coast interests elsewhere in this article.

Of the saw mill towns named the first four have an aggregate population of about 7,000 persons; the mills at these four places cut 867,319 logs in 1903 and there is behind these plants 228,850 acres of land covered with timber standing ready for the saw.

The Long-Bell Lumber Company is interested in coal and in the disposition of lumber at retail. Its most interesting feature and the basis of its prosperity is in its yellow pine saw milling proposition. This part of the properties will be described in brief detail and, for that sort of literature, in a comparatively new style. An earnest endeavor will be made to show the ramifications of the lumber from the time it leaves the tree until it trundles off into consumption. This part of the article will not depart from the "Tree to Trade" idea in theme.

The Rapides Lumber Company, Limited.
The beginning of the Rapides Lumber Company, Limited, was in 1890, when C. E. Roberts, C. S. Woodworth and Ed Rand purchased 18,000 acres of timber in Rapides Parish, Louisiana, of John Henry, of New Orleans. Even at that comparatively early date land was worth $4.25 an acre.

The Rapides Lumber Company was incorporated on December 20, 1890. Mr. Roberts built the mill and ran it three years. Mr. Roberts sold his interest to the Long-Bell Lumber Company in 1896.

The first officers of the Rapides Lumber Company, Limited, were C. S. Woodworth, president; Ed Rand, vice president, and C. E. Roberts, secretary and treasurer.

The Long-Bell Lumber Company purchased C. S. Woodworth’s interest in 1895. The officers of the company are R. A. Long, president; C. B. Sweet, vice president, and Ed Rand, secretary, treasurer and general manager.

The capacity of the first mill was 75,000 feet daily. In the twelve years of its life new machinery has been installed until there remains only the engine and four of the original boilers. The mill now has an average daily capacity of 110,000 feet.

The Town of Woodworth.
The town of Woodworth, established twelve years ago, has 1,000 inhabitants. It is located on the St. Louis, Watkins & Gulf and Woodworth & Louisiana Central railways. Bayou Clear runs through the town, a stream noted for its peculiarly picturesque surroundings and the clearness of its water.

There is a union church where services under the auspices of either the Methodist or Baptist organization are held each Sunday. There are schools and churches for both white and black races.

The Rapides Lumber Company, Limited, furnishes electric light to the principal houses and the town is very well served in the matter of fire protection by having ever at hand the resources of the lumber company in water mains.

The general store, owned and operated by the lumber company, carries an average stock of $15,000 worth of goods and has in connection a cold storage warehouse for the convenience of the inhabitants of Woodworth.

The town of Woodworth contains all told 103 houses and a new line of houses, some dozen in number, now being erected for the convenience of the men who work for the Rapides Lumber Company, Limited.

Taken all together Woodworth is in an extremely healthy locality for its sanitation is of the best.

Rapides Lands and Logging.
The lands of the Rapides Lumber Company, Limited, are all situated in Rapides parish, Louisiana. The timber is particularly adapted for export and railroad material, which trade the company solicits to a great extent. Its plant, however, is very complete in the direction of being able to turn out the highest grade of commercial stock. To generalize it may be safely said that this company owns enough timber now to keep its present plant in operation for at least twenty years.

The Rapides Lumber Company, Limited, owns at least 46,000 acres of longleaf yellow pine lands and in its life has cut over only 16,000 acres. The timber is purely long-leaf yellow pine and is not mixed with any varieties of cypress or hardwoods. The management of the company especially congratulates itself on this point. This land has produced not less than an average of 10,000 feet to the acre. The land is rolling, which makes the logging easy in all sorts of weather.

The company has used cattle in its logging operations until recently, but is now gradually adopting mules for the purpose of skidding.

Ed Rand, the human dynamo who infuses power and purpose into all the operations of the Rapides Lumber Company, Limited, has well defined ideas concerning the ultimate settling up of the country after and even before the pine is gone. There is now near the logging operations of the company a colony of hard working, frugal and industrious Belgians, who came there voluntarily to assume their life work.

These people live in nice four room cottages, have fine farms well fenced, raise potatoes, cotton, corn etc. and their products go to Woodworth and to Alexandria in wagons.

It is the intention of Mr. Rand to form a coalition with the chief men of the community and ultimately bring over from the old country many hundreds of their compatriots to be made into useful citizens to assist in creating the wealth of the Louisiana of the future.

Woodworth & Louisiana Central Railway.
The Woodworth & Louisiana Central Railway Company, whose principal service at present is the carrying of the products in timber and lumber of the Rapides Lumber Company, Limited, is one of the four common carriers which make up the Long-Bell railway system, whose general offices are in the Keith & Perry building, at Kansas City, Mo.

The Woodworth & Louisiana Central Railway Company has as local officers F. J. Hortig, general manager; Ed Rand, treasurer, and C. E. Allday, auditor.

This railway has now of main line sixteen miles of road used for logging operations almost exclusively; to this three miles of spur tracks are tributary.

The particularly lumber end of the road is six miles, is of standard gage 40 pound steel and connects Woodworth with La Morie, the junction point of the Southern Pacific and Texas & Pacific lines.

The road from Woodworth into the woods is a narrow gage and thoroughly ballasted. It is built of thirty-five pound steel rails and runs in a westerly direction from Woodworth. This road operates fifty-two cars, employs thirty-nine men and uses five high class locomotives. Four of these locomotives are devoted to the pulling of logging trains and one is used especially for the traffic between Woodworth and La Morie.

The locomotive equipment consists of one 20-ton side rod Grant, one 20-ton Shay, one 28-ton side rod Brooks, one 30-ton side rod Shay and one 45-ton Rhode Island locomotives, all of which are appropriately illustrated in this article.

The Woodworth & Louisiana Central railway keeps a force of men with an engine busily engaged in building spur tracks into the timber at various points as needed. The main line engine on the logging end pulls twenty-three loads easily and with great dispatch. The company will need about fifteen miles of track to get into all the timber which is now in its possession.

Log Storage at Woodworth.
The logs that are hauled in over the Woodworth & Louisiana Central railroad are dumped into a narrow log pond formed in Bayou Clear. This pond is composed of swift and running water, which is never in any way affected by dry weather and will hold about 750,000 feet of logs. A very fine picture of this log pond is printed elsewhere in this article.

Saw Mill at Woodworth.
A splendid panoramic view of the saw mill at Woodworth is shown in this article. When Mr. Rand was asked to describe it he said: "It is not much for pretty but it is the proper thing for making lumber, which I take it is the purpose for which saw mills are erected."

This mill, so laconically described, is one of the most successful circular saw mills in the entire Yellow Pine Empire and it is worth describing somewhat in detail.

The building is a two-story frame affair, 50x170 feet in area. The boiler house is of brick and 45x65 feet.

On the saw floor of the building are two circular saw mills. The No. 1 mill is an Allis-Chalmers. The carriage contains three head blocks and cuts up to thirty-six feet. The feed is a shotgun affair 9-1/2 inches in size.

The No. 2 mill is a Filer & Stowell. The carriage has four head blocks, 7-inch shotgun feed and cuts up to twenty-four feet.

On the saw floor are a Filer & Stowell double broken roll edger and a Link Belt Machinery Company trimmer.

The logs are handled to the carriage by a Hoo-Hoo nigger manufactured by Giddings & Lewis at Fond du Lac, Wis., and a modern log kicker, loader, steam tripp etc.

The power is generated in five boilers, sixty inches in diameter, fifteen feet long, guaranteeing 411 horse power. This power is transmitted to the machinery by a Wickes Bros. 22x26 engine.

The logs are brought into the mill on an endless chain slab elevator and the lumber is conveyed on an endless chain from the saw mill and loaded on "dollies" as to the common stock. The good lumber goes to a Whaley sorter to be conveyed to the dry kilns.

Drying and Handling Rough Lumber.
The dry kilns are two in number and are located 300 feet west of the saw mill. They hold 105,000 feet of lumber and turn out 40,000 feet of dry lumber daily.

One of the saw mill boilers mentioned in the battery of the five boilers that constitute the power of the saw mill is used for the dry kilns.

The lumber is stacked by hand before going through the dry kilns and when it is dry it is loaded on dollies and taken to the rough shed located north of the dry shed 250 feet. The rough sheds are two in number, each 60x450 feet in length, containing a superficial area of 54,000 feet of piling space. The two sheds will hold 4,000,000 feet of lumber.

The rough dimension and timbers which are shipped direct and do not go through the kilns are loaded on cars at loading docks which run 300 feet north of the saw mill. All these things, the great rough dry lumber shed, the dry kilns, the loading docks referred to, are shown in an illustrated way in the picture herewith.

The lumber that is carried directly to the yards is piled from the ground up. All of the common lumber, both inch and two inch, is put in piles in the yard.

Planing and Handling of Dressed Lumber.
The planing mill of the Rapides Lumber Company, Limited, is situated 1,000 feet north of the saw mill and is contained in a building 60x125 feet in area.

The boiler house is 40x60 feet and located on the north end of the planing mill proper.

The planing mill has complete machinery for turning out all classes of commercial stock, six modern machines being in use.

The fan to manipulate the shavings is a 70-inch double Sturtevant.

The boilers to furnish the power are two in number, manufactured by Casey & Hedges and generate 157 horse power. The engine to transmit this power is a Wickes Bros., 16x18.

The clear lumber is brought from the rough sheds and put into the cars or into the dressed sheds located both north and south of the planing mill. These sheds are three in number, 60x160, 36x230, 36x144. The total floor space is 23,064 square feet. They hold all told 2,000,000 feet of lumber. The loading dock, which has been before referred to, runs from the saw mill directly north about 1,500 feet. The track will contain 40 cars at one time.

The Rapides Machine Shop.
There is at Woodworth, a picture of which is printed among the illustrations herewith, a combined car and machine shop building 66x60. A separate engine, 5x7 in size, is utilized to run this shop.

The machine shop contains one 24-inch lathe, one 7-inch lathe, one 30x30 planer, one 28-inch drill press, one 1-1/2 inch bolt machine, one saw machine and one 60-ton Vulcan Iron Works hydraulic press.

There is in connection with this machine shop a brass foundry, in which all necessary molding in brass is done for the entire plant.

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Electric Lights and Telephones.
The electric light plant is located in the saw mill engine room and is run by an individual engine. It is a direct current and one of the best installed plants of its size in the country, with a capacity of 35 K.W. There are installed in and about the plant and at Woodworth twelve arc lamps and 350 incandescent lights. These incandescent lights are scattered through the store, ice house and all the mill buildings.

The private telephone lines of the Rapides Lumber Company, Limited, consist of a six-mile line from Woodworth to La Morie with two receivers; a line to Alexandria eleven miles long, which connects with the Cumberland long distance telephone, and a line extending south along the St. Louis, Watkins & Gulf railway as far as Forest Hill, La.

Fire Protection at Woodworth.
The policy of fire protection of the Rapides Lumber Company, Limited, is similar to that of all the Long-Bell Lumber Company’s affiliated interests. There is provided adequate power to throw water and all the pipe deemed necessary, and all heads of departments and responsible men about the plant are thoroughly familiar with every portion of the affair.

The fire whistle has seldom if ever broken the night solitude or interrupted the whirring wheels in the day time, but whenever this has occurred it has been found that the concerted action of the men has been all that was necessary to meet any emergency.

At Woodworth there are two pumps of 390 gallons capacity a minute, supplemented by a tank 80 feet high, which holds 40,000 gallons of water. The supply of water is permanent. There are 5,000 lineal feet of water mains and laterals connected with the plant and the usual complement of hydrants.

Selling Lumber at Woodworth.
All of the lumber of the Rapides Lumber Company, Limited, is sold direct to the trade. A previous discussion of the railways of this concern in another department of this article has shown the shipping facilities to be well nigh perfect.

The combination tariff sheets between the Watkins & Louisiana Central railway and the Texas & Pacific, Southern Pacific and St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern railways guarantee that this concern can get into almost all of the territory which today uses yellow pine lumber.

The company sends out lists regularly. Mr. Hortig pays particular attention to mill orders and correspondence and every car that leaves Woodworth carries a car card in two colors, an idea of Mr. Rand’s; a cupid with a banner and tooting horn that announces from two white horses the "Service and Quality" motto of the company.

The King-Ryder Lumber Company.
The history of the King-Ryder Lumber Company did not begin at Bonami. It began with the entrance of the Long-Bell Lumber Company into Indian Territory in a manufacturing sense.

During 1897 the Long-Bell Lumber Company purchased property at Thomasville, I. T., and organized and incorporated the King-Ryder Lumber Company, with capital stock of $125,000. The incorporators were: R. A. Long, president; W. S. King, vice president and general manager; W. F. Ryder, treasurer, and C. D. Morris, secretary.

This company continued in business in Indian Territory and Arkansas, branching out year after year, continuing its general office at Thomasville, I. T., but having small mills along the Pittsburg & Gulf road for a distance of nearly 100 miles, manufacturing stock which was marketed from the general office. The manner in which the business was carried forward and quality of stock shipped soon earned for it a reputation far and wide and established and have maintained it with the trade at large.

W. S. King remained with the company until 1898, when the vacancy caused by his retiring was filled by the election of B. H. Smith.

At the time of its organization its president realized the magnitude of the business that would grow out of the enterprise. He therefore selected the very best talent, particularly in the more responsible positions.

C. D. Morris, who had been with the Long-Bell Lumber Company since 1877, was a gentleman of amiable disposition whose presence brought sunshine into the office of his general manager, a man of exceptionally good judgment, his ideas being sought for when important transactions were being considered.

After having had charge of the wholesale department of the Long-Bell Lumber Company for a number of years Mr. Morris was selected as secretary and superintendent of the sales department of the new company, to have in charge all matters pertaining to the disposition of the lumber after it was loaded into cars. How well he did this is attested by the many hundreds of customers of his company and the reputation generally of the King-Ryder stock.

Mr. Morris continued with the new company and removed with it to Bonami, La., remaining there until it was well organized, when on account of ill health he removed to Rogers, Ark.

In October, 1900, the company broke ground at Bonami for the present mill. The company began work on the mill building in December and had the mill in operation July 26, 1901.

The officers of the present King-Ryder Lumber Company are: R. A. Long, president; B. H. Smith, vice president and general manager, and W. F. Ryder, secretary and treasurer.

Town of Bonami.
The town of Bonami, La., is a creation of the King-Ryder Lumber Company. It is located on the Kansas City Southern and the Louisiana & Pacific railways.

Bonami contains 210 houses, two schools, three secret orders and two churches.

The town of Bonami is a model in the matter of sanitation. It is one of the few distinctly saw mill towns in the south that has not had to go through with a line of troublesome fevers.

It has been particularly free from malarial troubles. Besides the extremely fine and consistent surface drainage very much of this is attributable also to the water.

In March, 1901, the King-Ryder Lumber Company put down a 200-foot well. An air compressor has to be used in the well, but it will produce a million gallons of water each twenty-four hours and the water is of remarkable purity. The management is now putting down another well of like character.

Bonami has two hotels -- a very superior hotel for traveling men called the Commercial, and the Hotel Bon Ami for those who demand cheaper entertainment. The Commercial hotel is considered one of the best hostelries between Shreveport and Port Arthur.

The town has excellent fire protection from the mains laid by the King-Ryder Lumber Company besides the elevated tank which can be used in case the pumps should stop. The pumps are kept to the pressure of 60 pounds all the while, and it will be observed under the fire protection head devoted to this company that there are more than the ordinary number of lineal feet of water pipe laid throughout the town of Bonami as compared with other saw mill points.

Bonami is the fourth largest town in Calcasieu parish, having at least 1,500 inhabitants.

Timber Lands and Logging at Bonami.
The lands of the King-Ryder Lumber Company are all located in Calcasieu parish. Two-thirds of the acreage is east of the Kansas City Southern tracks and the remainder to the west.

The logging is done with mules and horses. The high wheel "slip tongue" cart is in use. The logging crews are housed in the woods in portable houses, not built as a part of the car, but built so they may be easily put on a car for removal from point to point.

A very useful feature of the camp of this company is a portable barn built of five cars with sheet iron wings, movable feed troughs, folding mangers etc., which will hold eighty head of mules and horses. It can be picked up and moved in half a day by six men.

The spur tracks into the woods are laid regularly 800 feet apart. Two chain gangs, one Decker loader and one "Baptist"pine logging machine are used in loading the logs onto the cars.

The Baptist machine in use by the King-Ryder people has three pulling cables operated by one engine and as fast as the logs are pulled in they are loaded upon the cars by a separate and independent loading engine and boom which swings toward either side of the track.

The log "loader" referred to, the "skidder" partially described and the two gangs of men which work by chains and with horse or mule teams load 250,000 feet of logs daily.

All the track for the woods is laid with one small 12-ton locomotive and no teams are used to haul steel in the woods. The grading is done by teams. A water car is in use to carry water to the woods for the use of the men and animals, A small commissary is maintained in the woods for the use of the men.

The logs are cut from 24 feet to 48 feet in length and are sawed at the mill by drag saw to the desired lengths for manufacturing. The King-Ryder Lumber Company is an advocate of the low cutting of stumps. This has not been an easy form to institute.

The King-Ryder Lumber Company has 43,367 acres of timber lands from which to draw its supply of logs. Other purchases are being made in the usual way.

The King-Ryder Company employs mules and horses exclusively in the woods and has now on the work 93 mules and 31 horses.

Louisiana & Pacific Railway.
The Louisiana & Pacific railway is one of the four roads which make up the Long-Bell railway system. B. H. Smith is its general manager, W. F. Ryder superintendent and R. H. Mathis auditor, all of Bonami.

The general office of the road is in the Keith & Perry building, Kansas City, Mo. R. S. Davis is traffic manager.

Counting all of the spur tracks etc. used for logging the Louisiana Pacific railway has twenty miles of track. The main line will be extended at least six miles farther. The rail is of 35-pound steel, the road is a standard gage.

The locomotives in use by the Louisiana & Pacific railway are one 35-ton Rogers, one 35-ton Grant, one 12-ton Porter, one 35-ton Blood, and to this is soon to be added a 43-ton Baldwin mogul. Photographs of these locomotives, including the Baldwin referred to, are incorporated in the illustrated portion of this article.

The Louisiana & Pacific railway has seventy-two cars in commission. The road employs, including the steel gang, all told forty-five men.

Log Storage at Bonami.
The King-Ryder Lumber Company has two log storage ponds in one. The railroad track of the Louisiana & Pacific railway crosses this in the middle and the logs are dumped directly into the pond to the north, the road at that point running east and west just before it passes the mill. The pond to the south is used for a reserve pond, the logs being shoved in under the railway track.

This pond will all told hold 2,500,000 feet of logs.

The Saw Mill at Bonami.
A fine panoramic view of the saw mill of the King-Ryder Lumber Company is shown herewith in the illustrated story of the Long-Bell affiliated saw mill plants.

The mill comprises two band mills and one circular mill and is contained in a frame building two and one-half stories high, erected on a most solid brick foundation. The main building is 48x250 feet in area.

The new saw mill of the King-Ryder Lumber Company at Bonami contains two single cutting bands and one circular mill, all complete in every detail and of the most modern pattern.

These mills have all practical labor saving devices. The mill has a capacity of 150,000 feet of lumber daily, but runs day and night producing double that amount of lumber at the present time.

Timbers can be cut and surfaced four sides 20x30 inches by 54 feet in length or smaller.

The mill was built for durability and with a view of getting the lowest possible insurance rate.

Brick, iron and steel enter into its construction wherever practical.

The mill is provided with blast machinery to take care of all refuse.

Drying and Handling Rough Lumber.
The lumber is handled from the tail of the mill to the two stackers and to the yard sorting table.

The common lumber goes to the sorting chains, 150 feet long.

The lumber going direct to the yards is loaded on wagons by automatic power and hauled to the yards and dumped where it is wanted.

Lumber intended for the kilns goes to the stackers, where it is stacked on edge. From the stackers the lumber is transferred to the dry kilns 200 feet north by a cable run by a separate engine. The lath is also conveyed in the same way.

The dry kilns contain six rooms, each 22x104 feet in area. Five of these rooms are used for lumber and one for lath. The five rooms used for lumber will hold 300,000 feet. The one room used for lath holds 450,000 lath. The daily capacity of these six rooms is 100,000 feet of lumber and 40,000 lath.

The dry kiln rooms are equipped with Standard dry kiln automatic steam jets, two in each room. The old line insurance companies have adopted this particular kiln as their standard of excellence, holding that it is a high class model in every respect. All the walls of these kilns are built of 18-inch brick.

The rough sheds are directly west of the dry kilns, the main shed being 64x500 feet. There is a cooling shed 64x150 feet. These two sheds will hold 3,550,000 feet of lumber and contain 41,600 square feet of floor space.

The rough stock and railroad timbers are carried out at the tail of the mill and over a dock at the north end which is 250 feet long. The sizer referred to elsewhere stands between the tail of the mill and this dock. In fact, there are two docks, one 250x90 and one 36x250, so that at least 500,000 feet of rough lumber can be piled in this place. Twelve cars can be loaded at this dock at the same time.

Planing and Caring for Dressed Stock.
The plant of the King-Ryder Lumber Company, at Bonami, La., is fitted with two very remarkably fine and entirely modern, up to date planing mills.

Planing mill No. 1 is just a little south of the depot of the Kansas City Southern railway and is contained in a building 90x210 feet in area. The boiler house at the south end of planing mill No. 1 is fifty feet square, built almost entirely of brick and steel, and contains four boilers and a 24x30 Filer & Stowell rock valve engine.

The two large new planing mills were built to take care of the day and night runs of the saw mill and are furnished with very complete and up to date machinery for the manufacture of lumber finished to all patterns known to architects and builders.

The surplus shavings are handled from this planing mill by a 70-inch double Sturtevant fan. The shavings are piped to a sawdust burner 630 feet to the southeast, which is of steel construction, 230 feet long, in the form of an almost half circle and is ten feet high.

The lumber is handled from the yards, both to this planing mill and planing mill No. 2, on mule dollies from the rough lumber shed.

One of the most important features of the King-Ryder Lumber Company’s plant is the magnificent loading track, 2,500 feet long, which runs north and south along each side of the Kansas City Southern tracks and extends from planing mill No. 1 at the extreme south end of the plant on past the two dressed lumber sheds to and in front of planer No. 2. The dressed lumber sheds of the King-Ryder plant are two in number, each 150x150 feet in area, and will hold

3,000,000 feet of dressed stock in an area of 45,000 square feet.

Planing mill No. 2 is contained in a building 90x 200 feet in area and there is a boiler house 46x60 feet. The power plant consists of two boilers of 1,700-horse power. The engine is an 18x24 Atlas.

Electric Lights and Telephones.
The telephone system at Bonami is one of the most complete in use by a saw mill company. There is a private exchange located in the store of the company and with it are connected twenty-one instruments, with an instrument at almost every desk and certainly at all of the important points of the plant, in the works, in the mills, in the planing mills, yards, a connection with the office of the Hudson River Lumber Company at DeRidder, La., three miles distant, and a long distance connection with the Southwestern Telephone Company.

There are two electric light generators with a total capacity of 58-1/2 K. W. There are in commission twenty-one arc lights and 800 incandescent lights. Almost every important residence and place of business in the town of Bonami is thus lighted in a most complete way.

Machine Shops at Bonami.
The machine shop at Bonami is one of the most complete shops connected with any yellow pine manufacturing concern. It stands east of the saw mill. An interior view of this machine shop is shown in the illustrated story herewith. It is contained in a building 50x186 feet in area. Besides the regular machine shop tools it contains a car and woodworking shop, blacksmith shop etc. The machine tools consist of one 20-foot lathe, one 8-foot planer, one 18-inch shaper, one drill press, one hydraulic wheel press, one bolt cutter and threader, with all necessary smaller tools complete in every particular.

These people are prepared to rebuild locomotives in every part except the castings.

There is a complete brass foundry, where all brasses used about the plant are made.

There is room in this machine shop so that two or three locomotives might be placed therein and be worked upon at the same time without incommoding the men.

Fire Protection at Bonami.
There is a reservoir into which water runs direct from the well, which is located just southeast of the saw mill. This reservoir holds 90,000 gallons.

The force is applied by two Worthington pumps of 500 gallons a minute capacity each, which force the water to the main pipe lines and to the elevated water tank, which is seventy-six feet high and holds 43,000 gallons of water.

There is in use at Bonami 31,680 feet of water mains, or exactly six miles of piping of all kinds. There are seventy-five hydrants from which this water may be drawn at high pressure located where they will do the most good in case of any possible fire. Besides several thousand feet of hose there are two hose carts which can be rapidly put into use should a fire occur.

Selling the Lumber.
The product of the King-Ryder Lumber Company is handled almost entirely by the Long-Bell Lumber Company, of Kansas City.

The Hudson River Lumber Company.
The Hudson River Lumber Company, one time of Hudson, Ark., now of DeRidder, La., was incorporated at Hudson, Ark., twelve miles north of Texarkana, on the Kansas City Southern railway, on February 15, 1898, R. A. Long, president; C. B. Sweet, vice president and manager, and C. H. Dodd, secretary and treasurer.

The original purchase of timber at and near that point was 15,000 acres.

The Hudson River Lumber Company erected a band and "Dixie" circular at Hudson, Ark., and also a planing mill and the necessary dry kilns.

The company was in operation at Hudson, Ark., until the latter part of September, 1902. The Long-Bell Lumber Company and the Hudson River Lumber Company, in July, 1901, bought a great tract of 52,000 acres of timber in that portion of Louisiana of which DeRidder is now the commercial and active lumber producing center. All of this Louisiana purchase was in Calcasieu parish, the north end of the purchase being only two miles south of the north line of the parish. The erection of the new mill began in May, 1902.

The Hudson River Lumber Company produced and sold during its Arkansas experience at least 100,000,000 feet of high class shortleaf lumber.

In May, 1901, C. B. Sweet went to Kansas City as general manager of mills for the Long-Bell Lumber Company. H. E. Sweet, a brother, became secretary and manager of the company and C. A. Paxson treasurer. The officers were then as now -- R. A. Long, president; C. B. Sweet, vice president; H. E. Sweet, secretary and general manager, and C. A. Paxson, treasurer.

The planing mill was kept running at Hudson until the last day of January, 1903.

The company brought with it when it moved to DeRidder nearly all of the crew of men that had helped to make the success at Hudson.

Ground was broken at DeRidder on May 28, 1902, and on March 27, 1903, the mill was started. Thus only about eight weeks intervened between the stopping of the making of lumber at Hudson and the beginning of the making of lumber at DeRidder.

The planing mill was speedily erected at DeRidder, but did not start until July, 1903.

The Town of DeRidder, La.
DeRidder, La., is the home of the Hudson River Lumber Company and is situated on the Kansas City Southern railway 689 miles from Kansas City. The road at that point runs almost directly north and south, which, if remembered by the reader, will help to explain the location of the various buildings of the plant, which will be enumerated and described under appropriate heads.

DeRidder was a station on the Kansas City Southern railway and very much of a town before the advent of the Hudson River Lumber Company and it now has a population in the neighborhood of 3,000 persons.

The exact date of the founding of DeRidder is not known. It was, however, incorporated in 1903.

The town of DeRidder is especially blessed with deep wells, as is the town of Bonami, a few miles further south. The wells at DeRidder are 200 feet deep, the water coming to within thirty feet of the surface. This water is of great purity and adds much to the uniformly good health of the community. One of the industries of DeRidder outside of the lumber business is a bottling works using the water mentioned.

A great deal of attention has been paid by the lumber company and by the citizens in general to the matter of providing high class schools. A public school building is just now about to be completed which will cost about $6,500 and to which the company gave $2,000. A picture of this building is printed in the illustrated story herewith, showing the building in process of erection. This school will have eight teachers and the attendance will be from DeRidder, from Ludington and from the surrounding country. There are lodges of Masons and Odd Fellows, all having separate buildings. A new public school building is being erected for the colored people.

The Hudson River Lumber Company has added about 125 houses to the town besides the postoffice, butcher shop, hotel, offices and a very superior commissary, which carries an average stock of from $15,000 to $20,000 worth of goods.

The Hudson River Lumber Company has paid especial attention to the grading of streets and to the matter of drainage and has put in pavements in its part of the town quite extensively, something that is not often seen in a saw mill town. All of the company houses in the town have water supplied by the very complete system of water piping that has been put down by the company.

Timber Lands and Logging at DeRidder.
The first purchase of the Hudson River Lumber Company in Calcasieu parish, Louisiana, was 52,000 acres of longleaf yellow pine land. It has since bought land until now it aggregates 63,278 acres and there remains yet uncut 61,388 acres. The managers figure that their stumpage now amounts to 735,456,000 feet. Of this stumpage there is nothing whatever in the way of hardwoods.

The company at DeRidder is now operating in the woods with twenty-five horses, forty cattle and twenty-five mules, using the mules for loading with the slip tongue cart, the oxen with the wagons. The long logs are largely handled with the carts and the short logs on wagons by the oxen. The policy of the company, however, is to cut many long logs and have them resawed by drag saw to the length desired in the mill.

The logging is done back a quarter of a mile on each side of the railroad track. Portable houses, some twenty in number, are provided for the men in the woods.

The DeRidder & Eastern Railway.
The DeRidder & Eastern Railway Company is one of the four roads which comprise the Long-Bell railway system and is domiciled at DeRidder. The offices are located at DeRidder. The local officers are H. E. Sweet, general manager, and C. A. Paxson, auditor. It is a standard gage built of 35 pound steel and has about fifteen miles of track laid.

The equipment of the road consists of four locomotives, which are appropriately illustrated in the picture portion of this story, and it has all told fifty-four cars. It will take at least forty-five miles more of steel to secure all of the timber which the Hudson River Lumber Company now owns. The road has thirty-five employees.

The engines consist of one 35-ton Rhode Island, one 15-ton Porter, one 30-ton Baldwin and one 35-ton Shay.

Log Storage at DeRidder.
The logs at DeRidder are dumped into a made pond which is fed by the rains, by the water pumped into it, naturally from the overflow of the wells and the reservoir. The supply seems inexhaustible, the overflow and the rains keeping it properly flooded. This pond will hold 1,000,000 feet of logs.

The Saw Mill at DeRidder.
The saw mill at DeRidder is about a quarter of a mile east of the Kansas City Southern tracks at that point and is contained in a building 50x228 feet in area, two and a half stories high, with the pulleys on the first floor, the saw floor being the second floor and the half story the filing room. The log haulup is from the east. The mill stands east and west as to general direction.

This mill being the latest built by the Long-Bell Lumber Company alliances, should be easily the best.

The mill has two double cutting Allis-Chalmers band mills and attachments of the latest pattern lumber trimmer, lath mill etc.

The plant has a vast amount of timber back of it, which was taken into consideration when the location was selected, and accounts for the substantial construction of the plant throughout.

The power is furnished by four 66-inch by 18-foot boilers and is transmitted by a 26x48 Corliss engine. Timbers up to forty-four feet can be cut on one side of this mill; 30,000 lath are produced daily from the refuse.

This saw mill cuts 125,000 feet of lumber daily, lumber scale. The furnaces in the boiler room are fed automatically and have smoke stacks 110 feet tall and eight feet in diameter.

Yarding and Drying of Lumber.
The lumber leaves the DeRidder mill in three directions, all practically automatic. The rough stuff, timbers etc. are moved to the west on live rolls to the general timber dock which has a shipping front of 425 feet and will hold twenty cars of lumber.

That lumber which is to be dressed goes to the sizer, which is a 20x30-inch affair run by a 20x24 engine with steam from the saw mill boilers, on transfer chains, where it is separated into dry kiln stock and yard stock by a trip worked by one man with an extra man to look after keeping it straight.

The yard stock moves on live rolls to the west for 20o feet to a sorting table under a shed standing north and south, which is 175x32 feet in area, running to the north, standing its long way to the north and south. Here four men and a grader pull it off and place it upon dollies which are pulled by mules, each dolly having upon it one grade and size. It takes 100 dollies to handle the output of rough stuff that goes directly to the yard. These dollies are handled by three mules.

In the yard the stock is piled down and up from trams eight feet above the ground. The stock is thus piled on an average of eight feet below the tram and twelve feet above the tram, making the average height of the piles in the yard of the Hudson River Lumber Company twenty feet.

The yards of the company are most conveniently fitted with trams over which the lumber can be easily carried. There are in the yards trams which aggregate a total length of 12,146 feet all told.

After being dumped on the conveyor chains the dry kiln stock goes to the stackers, two in number, the lumber being divided automatically by the trip man into 1-inch and 2-inch.

After the lumber is stacked and arranged for the dry kiln it is moved on rails until it reaches the kilns proper, which are located about 120 feet distant.

The kilns are of brick and consist of five rooms, each room 24x112 feet in area. These kilns will hold, the three that are used for lumber, 225,000 feet and can turn out 50,000 feet of dried lumber daily.

The lath are loaded onto a kiln car and moved directly into the kiln.

The lumber is transferred from the kiln 200 feet farther north to the rough shed, through which all lumber star and better is transferred until its proper stall is reached. This is done by transfer chains.

It is not recorded that there is a similar shed of this kind anywhere else in the south. The transfer chains run the entire length of the building. This building is 64x415 feet in area and 27 feet high. The sorting tables are located about 16 feet from the ground. As the lumber comes into the shed it is graded by one man, then four men pull it off and handle it to the bins on either side of the transfer chains.

The lumber needed at the planing mill is carried directly through to the end of the shed and loaded on dollies and transferred directly to the planing mill.

This shed will hold all told about 2,000,000 feet of lumber. The storage capacity extends up and above the tram as well as below. The lath go along under the gallery or dock and are stored there. Two million lath can be put into this rough shed.

There is an independent engine 8x10 in size at the south end of this storage shed for the purpose of handling the chains.

Planing and Handling Dressed Lumber.
Two hundred feet north of the rough shed at DeRidder is the planing mill, contained in a building 76x196 feet in area.

The boiler house of the planing mill is built to the east of the planing mill structure and is of brick and iron. It is 52x65 feet and contains four boilers 16 feet long and 60 inches in diameter. The engine which transmits the power to the planing mill machinery is a Houston, Stanwood & Gamble 22x30 in size.

The planing mill machinery consists of one edger; one band resaw; one Byrkit lath machine; one Woods molder; one Hall & Brown molder; one surfacer and seven Hall & Brown Machinery Company matchers.

The lumber is brought to the planing mill from the rough shed and from the yard and also directly from the saw mill through the dry kiln and over the carrying chains in the great rough shed, as outlined in another department.

All the lumber wherever from is carried to the planing mill on four wheeled lumber buggies.

As much of the stock as it is possible to handle in that way is put directly from the planing mill into cars. Of course when this cannot be done the lumber is run from the planing mill into the dressed lumber sheds to the east and to the west of the mill.

The dressed lumber sheds may contain all together 4,500,000 feet of lumber and they have in area 30,000 square feet of floor space. The total floor space of the rough and dressed sheds equals 56,560 square feet.

Electric Lights and Telephones.
The basic principle of the electric lighting system of the Hudson River Lumber Company is incorporated in two dynamos -- one in the planing mill boiler house, which supplies the planing mill and uptown lights, and one in the saw mill engine room, which supplies the saw mill yard and rough shed.

The two generators have together a joint capacity of 50 K. W. and supply all told fifteen arc lights and 600 incandescent lamps. The system is very complete.

The Hudson River Lumber Company is on the Bonami circuit by way of a personal line from DeRidder to Bonami, three miles south. There is a separate line with phones at the store, office, saw mill, planer etc. This particular local telephone line is a mile in length.

There is another line connecting the office, machine shop and woods which has three receivers -- one in the machine shop and one in the woods. This line is six miles long.

In the store of the Hudson River Lumber Company is a receiver of the Southwestern Telephone Company that keeps DeRidder in touch with the outside world in a telephonic way.

Machine Shops at DeRidder, La.
The Hudson River Lumber Company has a very complete machine shop contained in two buildings. The machine shop proper is in a building 40x80 feet in area and the car shop is in a building 20x80 feet in area. This building also contains the carpenter shop.

The machine shop handles practically all the repair work necessary at this place and in addition builds all the cars that are needed for the DeRidder & Eastern railway.

Fire Protection at DeRidder, La.
The supply of water for fire protection and for other uses at DeRidder is obtained from a very remarkable deep well, which is 200 feet deep and worked with an air compressor. The pressure to the complete system of piping, tanks, reservoir etc. is accomplished by one Snow pump of 500 gallons a minute capacity and a Gardner pump of 350 gallons a minute capacity.

The lineal feet of water main at DeRidder aggregates something like 22,000. The water tank, which is 86 feet high, holds 50,000 gallons and the great reservoir near the mill where the main body of the water supply is kept under pressure is 30 feet deep and 30 feet in diameter.

Shipments of Lumber from DeRidder.
The Hudson River Lumber Company handles its own stock direct, and running only half time in 1903 on account of building new mill it shipped 1,053 cars. This company reaches as far east as Ohio and Pennsylvania for its trade and naturally gets into all of the territory west of the Mississippi river to and including Colorado.

Two traveling men are engaged in disposing of the product. A. L. Sweet travels in southeastern Kansas and southwestern Missouri, northeastern Indian Territory and northwestern Arkansas and has headquarters at Pittsburg, Kan. George S. Hays, traveling man, works in northern Kansas with no definite or particular headquarters.

Globe Lumber Company, Limited.
The Globe Lumber Company, Limited, of Yellow Pine, Webster parish, Louisiana, has come to a full fruition of a great success.

In March, 1898, R. L. Trigg and confreres sold their possessions to R. A. Long and others. Mr. Trigg was for a time manager, then the management went to the late William Layton Mace. He was succeeded by T. H. Rogers, and July 1, 1901, the present manager, J. W. Martin, succeeded Mr. Rogers.

The Globe Lumber Company, Limited, has forged into a position among southern mills which is certainly enviable, as the most cursory perusal of the story which follows will indicate.

The present officers of the Globe Lumber Company, Limited, are R. A. Long, president; C. B. Sweet, vice president; J. W. Martin, treasurer and general manager, and S. T. Woodring, secretary.

The Louisiana home of the Globe Lumber Company, Limited, is at Yellow Pine, La., a station on the Sibley, Lake Bistineau & Southern railway, six miles from Sibley, La., which is the junction point of the Vicksburg, Shreveport & Pacific and Louisiana & Arkansas railroads and one terminus of the road first above mentioned.

Yellow Pine, La.
Yellow Pine, La., is not just a "pretty saw mill town," it is a pretty place without qualification. It is built on rolling ground and contains several very fine residences and public buildings worthy of pictorial note in this text.

There is a fine school building and in the public schools 120 pupils are enrolled. The school is taken care of by two teachers.

The second story of the school building is used by the Woodmen of the World, the Knights of Pythias, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and a Blue Lodge body of Masons. There is also a fine union church edifice.

Such portion of the health of the community as is not regulated by the perfect sanitation and the natural health of the locality is looked after by two company physicians, one of whom resides in Yellow Pine and the other at Ringgold, a station on the Sibley, Bistineau & Southern road nearer the woods end of the proposition than is Yellow Pine.

Timber Lands and Logging.
The company owns 56,000 acres of timber land. The pine is of the shortleaf variety and of a very high class and character, not unlike the superior short-leaf pine of Arkansas and the old time cork pine of Michigan. The logging is done over the Sibley, Lake Bistineau & Southern road.

In the woods the logging proper is done with horses, mules and oxen.

Fine pictures of the teams that do the work in the woods are appropriately shown in the illustrated story accompanying this text.

The logs are hauled to the skidways on 24 log wagons and by four slip-tongue carts.

This being a shortleaf pine proposition and the trees necessarily fewer in number to an acre than in longleaf, a goodly part of the expense of logging is the matter of hauling the logs to the spur track for loading. At present this is accomplished by 72 cattle, 68 mules and 24 horses.

Some of the logging also is done by contract; often as many as 20 contract teams are working in the woods.

There are at present three camps; the headquarters camp 19 miles from Yellow Pine, the mule camp 20 miles from Yellow Pine and the ox camp 22 miles from Yellow Pine.

At present all of the loading of logs on the cars is done with teams and not less than 250 men work in the woods.

The company is seriously discussing the question of putting in a log loader or skidder, probably the former.

Nearly all of the men who work in the camps live in the woods at one or the other of the camps mentioned and for their accommodation portable houses are in service, each 11x26 feet in size, fitted with two doors and six windows. These houses are painted and are kept in excellent condition. A boarding house for the use of the single men is kept at each of the camps and in the headquarters camp there are several permanent buildings.

The stock is housed in two portable stables which have been erected without driving a nail and can be readily taken apart and re-erected in a short time when necessary. At the headquarters camp is a portable commissary, where a fine stock of goods is kept of all the things that are found necessary for the men to use.

The Globe Lumber Company, Limited, management is an advocate of the closest possible stump cutting that men can be induced to do. They cut down at the present time to about 20 inches in height.

The Sibley, Lake Bistineau & Southern Railway.
The Sibley, Lake Bistineau & Southern railway, over which road all the logs are hauled for the use of the company, is a traffic line of great importance to the people who live in this section of Louisiana.

The local officers of the road are J. W. Martin, general manager, and C. P. Perkinson, auditor.

The Sibley, Lake Bistineau & Southern Railway Company has all told forty-five miles of road and is a standard gage, as well ballasted and put down as any road in the south. The rails are of 35 and 40 pound steel, the 35 pound being used only on the spurs.

The general direction of the road from Sibley is to the southwest for two miles, then west directly to Yellow Pine. The road runs across Webster and Bienville parishes into Red River parish.

The locomotives used consist of a 23-ton eight wheel Baldwin; a 42-ton Rogers rod engine; a 28-ton Shay geared engine; and a 43-ton ten wheel Baldwin with pony trucks front and rear.

The total number of cars in use is 91 -- 77 being log cars, four steel cars, eight boarding cars and two caboose cars.

Log Storage.
The plan for log storage at the plant of the Globe Lumber Company, Limited, is the usual scheme of a made pond which is fed by drainage. A stream also runs through it and in addition to this it is fed by the overflow from the tank.

This log pond at Yellow Pine will easily hold a million feet of logs.

The Saw Mill.
The saw mill building is 80x196 feet in area and three stories high.

The boiler house is built of brick and is 62x69 feet in area.

The mill is new and complete in every respect and contains three McDonough band mills, accompanied by all kinds of up to date complementary labor saving machinery.

In connection with the saw mill there is a lath mill which produces about 40,000 lath daily.

The power is generated in seven boilers each 60 inches by 16 feet and is transmitted by a Corliss engine 24x42 inches cylinder.

The mill is modern in all respects and has a capacity of 165,000 feet of lumber a day.

Drying and Handling Rough Lumber.
There is at the north end of the saw mill a timber dock for loading timbers, also another at the south end where partial loads can be handled by wagon.

The rough clear and select stock is taken by the rolls and chains to three Fullerton stackers 50 feet north of the saw mill and from there on transfers to the dry kiln.

The yard stock which runs out onto the sorting table is passed over a live loader shaft from whence it is loaded onto the wagons and is carried directly to the yard. The stock that goes to the yard is handled by five wagons.

The dry kilns are located at the regulation distance from the stackers and are six in number -- one room of brick and five of frame. The dry kilns are used both for the drying of lath and of the good lumber and will hold 300,000 feet of lumber all told.

The sheds for the rough lumber are two in number, one 50x500 and another 50x300, and will hold all told 3,000,000 feet of stock and contain 40,000 square feet of floor space.

Dressing and Handling Lumber.
All lumber is brought to the planing mill situated several hundred feet northwest of the saw mill. This is done very cheaply. There are fifty yard wagons in commission at Yellow Pine.

The lumber is taken from the dry kilns from the kiln cars and put on dollies; and it is the policy of the company to carry all the flooring stock directly to the planing mill.

The planing mill building is 80 feet wide by 231 feet long.

The power to run the planing mill is generated in three boilers 54 inches by 16 feet and two 60 inches by 16 feet.

There are two engines, one 22x26 Wickes slide valve and one 13x16 Ball automatic, the latter engine running none of the mill machinery -- simply the fan.

The planing mill machinery consists of one Hoyt 8x30 sizer, one Hoyt 12x30 sizer, one Woods 15-inch matcher, one Hall & Brown outside molder, eight Hall & Brown Mississippi matchers, one Hall & Brown rip saw, one Hoyt edger and rip saw, one Hall & Brown circular and resaw, one Mershon standard band resaw and the usual complement of cut-off saws etc.

The various dressed lumber sheds of easy access to the mill are of the following sizes: 30x150 feet, 30x200 feet, 70x140 feet, 80x300 feet and 60x120 feet, showing a total floor capacity of 51,500 square feet and will hold 4,000,000 feet of lumber so that ample provision has been made for any kind of an emergency that might occur in the way of dressed stock.

Electric Lights and Telephone.
The electric light plant of the Globe Lumber Company, Limited, is described as 30 K. W. It is composed of a 125-volt directly acting current to six arc lamps and to 300 incandescent lamps. The company has a very fine telephone system, which runs from Sibley to Camp Long, twenty-four miles, and which has seven instruments at the various places where they will do the most good. They cut in also to the Cumberland Telephone Company’s long distance line.

The Machine Shop.
West of the saw mill in a special building is located the blacksmith and machine shop. In a blacksmith way the shop contains two blast forges. In a machine shop way it is supplied with lathes, planer, shaper, drill press and a thread, nut and tapping machine. The machine shop tools are driven by a 10x12 Filer & Stowell automatic engine, the power coming from an independent boiler of sufficient size to run the shop.

The shop is supplied with two pits for locomotive work. It does all the repairs for the locomotives and cars and the mill machinery with the exception of locomotive work concerning the drivers.

Fire Protection.
The supply of water for fire protection is secured about a mile distant from Yellow Pine from an ever running stream and is forced through the pipes. There is in and about the plant 15,840 line 1 feet of water mains and laterals.

There are all told about eighty hydrants and a full complement of hose to cover any emergency. The water pipes are arranged with cutoffs between all hydrants so that in case of a break the water can be shut off on each side and no disastrous results occur and the stream kept playing without intermission.

Sales Department.
The sales department of the Globe Lumber Company, Limited, at Yellow Pine, La., is under the direct and intelligent management of S. T. Woodring and all sales are made direct from Yellow Pine.

The shipping advantages of Yellow Pine are re-remarkably fine. The Sibley, Bistineau & Southern railway has joint tariff arrangements with the Vicksburg, Shreveport & Pacific road, which lets the mill into all the southwestern trade and into any portion of the east, as will be readily appreciated. Also at Sibley it has joint tariffs with the Louisiana & Arkansas that lets its product out to all points reached by the Cotton Belt from Stamps, Ark., and to all points reached by the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern from Hope; therefore all Missouri Pacific points and also all

Frisco system and Chicago & Eastern Illinois points and their various and sundry and almost universal connections in all directions.

The southwestern connections are over the Vicksburg, Shreveport & Pacific, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas, the Texas & Pacific and Kansas City Southern. This arrangement of connections insures a continually good car supply. During the year 1903, when the southern and southwestern mills were so badly crippled, the Globe Lumber Company, Limited, was not especially damaged for lack of cars.

The Globe Lumber Company, Limited, congratulates itself on making absolutely everything that can be or is made of yellow pine stock; that it handles lath; that it has a Byrkit-Hall lath mill; that it can surface timbers 12x12; that it makes a specialty of high grade flooring, casing, base and molding out of strictly kiln dried stock, and especially and particularly that it keeps in close touch with its customers by correspondence and gets out lists. The lists that the company sends out are looked after particularly, both as to typographical excellence and frequency and thoroughness with which they are sent out.

This company now enjoys trade in Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Indiana, Oklahoma, Indian Territory, Ohio.

Trophies Presented by President Long.
Iowa, Texas, Nebraska, Colorado, Tennessee, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, West Virginia, Mississippi, South Dakota, New Mexico, New York and Pennsylvania.

The sales department keeps especially in touch with the stock on hand. A painstaking inventory was inaugurated in the first place and was done once a month and very recently has been adopted a plan of making a weekly inventory, which is proving very effective.

Trophies.
During August, 1903, by vigorous efforts on the part of the management and organization, the Globe Lumber Company obtained unusual profits, the amount shown in monthly statement being greater than that shown in any previous month by this company, or any of the alliances of the Long-Bell Lumber Company, in the manufacturing department for a single month’s business. By way of reward of merit and to show somewhat of its appreciation of the efforts put forth on the part of J. W. Martin, general manager, and S. T. Woodring, superintendent of sales department, Mr. Long, as president, presented to them two handsomely engraved and valuable watch charms, which are illustrated herewith.

Accompanying these mementos was a very nicely worded letter of appreciation of their efforts, signed by

President Long, which in itself has a great value to the parties addressed.

In this presentation was the condition that the jewels remain their property until such time as the profits for one month of one of the other manufacturing plants might exceed those shown by the Globe Lumber Company. In that case they would pass to the parties making a better record. Messrs. Martin and Woodring, however, feel safe on this proposition -- that if they would lose it it would only be temporarily, for with their plant and organization they believe they can remain at the head of the ranks.

Following out a rule that has always been adhered to -- of purchasing and supplying its clients with the best obtainable -- and realizing that in order to do this at a point far removed from headquarters the most economical and satisfactory way would be to have its own purchasing department on the ground, the Long-Bell Lumber Company established an office on the Pacific coast. One of the chief items, aside from its own manufactured product, handled by the Long-Bell company is Washington red cedar shingles, and in order that it might be kept in close touch with the situation and to facilitate the purchasing and movement of that and other Pacific coast woods, in the fall of 1893 A. W. Lyman was sent out to Tacoma, Wash., to establish an office for the purchase of lumber and shingles to meet the requirements of the company. This office keeps closely in touch with manufacturing conditions, making purchases of the requirements of the company and looking after shipments, thus insuring the filling of orders more promptly than would otherwise be the case were a representative not on the ground to look after things.

Mr. Lyman, who died in the winter of 1894, was succeeded by E. R. Rogers, of whom a biographical sketch is given in another part of this story, and who is the present manager. Under his supervision the trade from that source has had a steady growth and is a very profitable department of the Long-Bell company.

The Weed Lumber Company was incorporated March 14, 1903, under the laws of California, with a capital stock of $1,000,000, succeeding the business of Abner Weed. The officers and directors are as follows: President and general manager, Abner Weed, Weed, Cal.; secretary, B. F. Brooks, Weed, Cal.; directors -- George E. Bittinger, manager National bank, Los Angeles, Cal.; E. S. Moulton, manager Citrus Fruit Association, Riverside, Cal.; Winfield S. Davis, manager J. B. F. Davis & Sons, insurance brokers, San Francisco, Cal.; G. X. Wendling, San Francisco, Cal., and Charles A. Sands, Oakland, Cal.

Character of the Timber and Its Uses.
The value of California white pine as a sash, door and box material is rapidly becoming recognized by the trade. The wood is of a firm, close grain, resembling in its essential qualities the pines of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, which it is to a large extent, in certain localities, particularly in the central part of the country, replacing in the manufacture of sash, door and box material. Already the demand for shop material of this wood, which comprises from 20 to 30 percent of the lumber manufactured, is scarcely equal to the production.

The timber commonly known as California white pine is of a growth peculiar to itself. It is a notable fact that aside from the district north of Mount Shasta it is not found in solid bodies, being intermixed with other conifers and hardwoods. It is found growing in the high altitudes of the Rocky and Sierra Nevada mountain ranges, the belt extending in those ranges south from the northern boundary line of California into Mexico. The same class of timber is also found, although in smaller quantities, in eastern Washington, western Oregon and in parts of Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico.

The timber found in the Mount Shasta district, however, has a larger percentage of white pine than that found in any other locality, and in this particular district the holdings of the Weed Lumber Company amount to 63,000 acres. The character of the soil is what is known as volcanic ash. This fact, coupled with the light annual rainfalls which are the rule in that section of the state, has had the tendency to cause a slow growth of the timber, which has resulted in the much to be desired fine grain so necessary in shop material and for kindred uses.

The estimated white pine stumpage owned by the Weed Lumber Company is in the neighborhood of 1,200,000,000 feet, the entire holdings being valued at $2,000,000. In addition to white pine there is also a small percentage of fir, cedar and sugar pine found in the timber lands of the company. This latter wood, while very similar in character to white pine, does not run in the Mount Shasta district to as large a percentage of the stumpage as is the case in other sections of the belt. Nor does it in the manufactured product produce the same quantity of uppers as the other pine. It has been and is the policy of the company to cut only the white pine stumpage and to make that wood its specialty, carrying only one stock and one line of material.

The total cut of the plant amounts to 40,000,000 feet annually, 12,000,000 feet of which is manufactured into box stuff. Up to the present time the principal market for the output of the plant has been in the state, the box material going to the citrus belt of southern California, a small proportion finding its way to the eastern markets. Now that the interests of the Weed Lumber Company have been affiliated with those of the Long-Bell Lumber Company, which will make a specialty of handling California white pine, the market for the product will, with the magnificent sales organization of the Long-Bell company, be greatly enlarged.

The Plant.
The plant of the Weed Lumber Company is located at Weed, Siskiyou county, California, at the foot of Mount Shasta. It is on the main line of the Southern Pacific railway running from San Francisco to Portland, Ore., 350 miles from the former and 450 from the latter city, and was named after the founder and president of the company, Abner Weed. The town site covers about 3,000 acres which belong to the Weed Lumber works, well built and commodious dwellings which are rented to the employees, a hotel, commissary and other conveniences usually found in towns of twice its size.

The manufacturing plant consists of a new Stearns double band mill which is now approaching completion and a circular mill. The new mill is being constructed with the most modern machinery manufactured by the Stearns company. On the completion of the new mill -- about June 1 -- the company will have an output of around 125,000 feet of manufactured lumber daily.

There is also run in connection with the lumber plant one of the best equipped box factories on the Pacific coast. This building is 90x174 feet, with a 90x90-foot addition used for storage purposes. The box factory has a capacity of 60,000 feet of material in a day of eleven hours. The power for both the above plants is supplied by a boiler plant of 1,200-horse power.

All materials are handled from the various plants and to and from the yards by means of a gravity tramway, elevated from 12 to 16 feet above the ground. This method gives a two-fold advantage -- that of piling down and up as high as convenient at a minimum cost. From the yard the material is taken as required by means of trucks to the factory, all by gravity.

The log storage is taken care of by a large log pond situated at the rear of the saw mills. The logs are brought to the camps by means of the logging road which runs out into the timber. This pond is of sufficient size to take care of several million feet and is at all times kept filled to its capacity.

Logging Operations and Equipment.
The topography of the country in which the holdings of the Weed Lumber Company are located permits the logging operations to be carried on in a very economical manner. As a rule it is level, with slight rises and falls, and the logs are brought to the railroad by means of the high wheel logging cart, which is recognized as the cheapest method of handling timber in the woods. The ground is free from underbrush, a feature that is exceptional.

From the woods the logs are brought to the mill by means of a logging railroad. It is a logging railroad in name only, having been constructed up to the specifications of a main line traffic railroad. The grade has been constructed for a distance of thirteen miles and by the middle of the coming summer iron will be laid to the main body of timber. The road is of standard gage and laid with 56-pound steel rails and first class in every particular. The equipment consists of thirty flat cars, equipped with Westinghouse air brakes and automatic couplers; one 8-driver, 140,000-pound main line Baldwin locomotive; one 4-driver, 90,000-pound main line locomotive of the passenger type, and one geared Heisler locomotive capable of climbing an 11 percent grade. This last engine is to be used exclusively for hauling logging cars over laterals and switches in a country which is practically without grading.

In logging the timber the logs are almost always cut into 16-foot but sometimes 24-foot lengths. The object in cutting the material in these sizes is to utilize all coarse and rough material and cores of logs as railroad ties. It is the aim, however, of the company to make everything in 16-foot lengths, getting out of the material either tie, box or the higher grades from No. 2 shop up, the greater demand for which is in that length.

The Fidelity Land & Improvement Company, one of the allied interests of the Long-Bell Lumber Company, was incorporated in 1889 with a capital stock of $300,000 for the purpose of buying and developing coal lands in Cherokee and Crawford counties, Kansas. At the present time the company operates a large acreage of the finest coal land in Cherokee county, the holdings being underlaid with a very superior quality of coal which is being marketed as the "Fidelity" brand.

It was not until 1900 that active mining operations were begun and two shafts were sunk at Stone City. These mines were equipped with the latest and most improved machinery and devices for the economical mining of coal.

Chemical Analysis of the Coal.
The coal mined by the Fidelity company is of a high grade and is of the best steam as well as domestic coal. In chemical analysis it approaches the famous McAlester coal; for some purposes is deemed superior. It has also a large sale for gas purposes and fully 50 percent of the output is consumed by the gas trade tributary to the coal producing territory.

Mines Nos. 1 and 2.
These mines are located at Stone City, Kan., on a branch of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railroad, three miles from Mineral, and have a combined output of 600 tons daily, employing 200 men. After September 1 the output will be 800 tons daily. Each shaft is 150 feet deep, tapping a vein of coal that averages three feet six inches thick. This coal is a fine quality of bituminous and the output is used largely for gas making purposes. In addition to the lower vein there is also what is termed the upper vein, which is found about 70 feet below the surface and runs from twenty-four to thirty inches in thickness. This upper vein is underlaid with about eight feet of very fine fire clay which would find a ready sale for the manufacture of brick, tiling etc. The company has not as yet mined the upper vein and the fire clay to any great extent, but will do so later, adding a very profitable product to its output.

Adjoining the shaft is the mining town of Stone City, which is owned by the company. At the present time there are 123 houses which are rented to the miners. The town has a waterworks, church, primary school, shooting park for the use of the employees and other modern conveniences usually found in a town of twice its size. The streets are well laid out and particular attention has been paid to sanitary regulations.

The company also operates a general store at this point under the management of D. M. Lasley. A general stock of drygoods and groceries amounting to $10,000 is carried which is retailed to the miners at a reasonable profit. The stock is sufficiently large and varied to draw a trade from the surrounding country, accommodating farmers as well as miners.

The general business of the company at Stone City is under the supervision of H. M. Baker, who acts as agent. Mr. Baker is a young man of considerable experience in like business and has made himself a valuable employee of the company.

Mine No. 3.
Mine No. 3 is located about one mile west of Scammon, Kan., on a branch of the St. Louis & San Francisco railroad, the shaft of which was sunk in 1898. This mine employs 250 miners and has a daily output of 800 tons. The shaft is about eighty feet deep and taps a high grade of bituminous coal, the vein averaging three feet eight inches in thickness. In equipment this is one of the best owned by the company. It is lighted throughout by electricity from a dynamo designed for 250 volts and 400 amperes which also operates an 18-horse power motor used in hauling the coal cars in the mines.

The general store is located on the most prominent corner in Scammon, under the able management of Thomas B. Evans, a man widely known in that section, having been in the general merchandise business for years. Mr. Evans has a personality that holds the trade of the miners as well as a large trade with the townspeople and farmers. The stock is a well assorted one of general merchandise and dry goods, such as is usually kept for sale in stores in cities of several times the size of Scammon.

A. M. Brooks, the resident agent at Scammon, has a wide experience in the coal business, having located in this district in 1882 and having been in the service of the Kansas & Texas Coal Company for years both in Kansas and Arkansas. In 1903, when this property was purchased, Mr. Brooks was appointed agent of the interests of the Fidelity Land & Improvement Company at Scammon, which position he now ably fills.

Mines Nos. 6 and 7.
These mines are owned by W. H. Barrett, the general superintendent of the company, the output being under contract for a term of years to the Fidelity company. Mine No. 6 is on a branch of the Frisco railroad, about four miles west of Weir, Kan., and being in process of development the output at present is small, but will be within a short time a minimum of 600 tons daily. The vein has an average thickness of three feet eight inches and the coal is of an exceptionally fine quality. Within a short time there will be two hundred men employed at this place.

Mine No. 7 is located on a branch of the Missouri Pacific Railway, three miles from Cherokee, Kan. This mine is also in process of development, the output at the present time being no criterion as to what it will be after September 1. The prospects are that the output will be before January 1, 1905, from 800 to 1,200 tons daily. The shaft is 115 feet deep, the vein of coal averaging three feet six inches. The quality of coal mined at this place bespeaks for the mine a grand future, there being 400 acres of land in connection therewith.

Fidelity Fuel Company, Fidelity, Ark.
This company recently incorporated for the purpose of opening up extensive mining properties on the Midland Valley railroad in Sebastian county, Arkansas. The company has 391 acres of land wholly underlaid with coal. The vein is an exceptionally high grade of semi-anthracite five feet two inches in thickness. The construction work, as will be seen from pictures shown in this article, is rapidly going ahead and within one year’s time without doubt this property will be one of the largest producers in Arkansas. The location of the property on the Midland Valley railroad enables the company to reach a vast territory, as the Midland Valley has connection with the Missouri Pacific, Kansas City Southern, Missouri, Kansas & Texas, Fort Smith & Western, Choctaw, Oklahoma & Gulf and Frisco railroads. The townsite of Fidelity has been laid out and building material is now on the ground for the purpose of erecting a town and the necessary business houses. The stock of this company is largely owned by the Long-Bell Lumber Company, the officers being R. A. Long, president; F. J. Bannister, secretary and treasurer.

W. H. Barrett, General Superintendent.
Mr. Barrett was born in England in 1857, his family moving to the United States and settling in Pittsburg, Pa., in 1860. His father being a miner, the son naturally followed the same vocation and at the age of eleven years began work in the mines. At the age of twenty-two he moved to the coal fields of Kansas, being one of the pioneer miners in Cherokee and Crawford counties. His ability being early recognized, he was made mine boss in the early ’80s and appointed superintendent of the Kansas & Texas Coal Company’s properties in the two counties, continuing in that capacity until 1899. At that time he was general underground superintendent of that company’s vast interests and commanded the largest salary of any superintendent in like position in the west. Later Mr. Barrett leased one of the company’s mines and has since opened and operated numerous mines on his own account. In September, 1903, an arrangement was entered into with the Fidelity company whereby that company buys the output of Mr. Barrett’s several mines, and at the same time Mr. Barrett accepted the position of general superintendent of all of the Fidelity company’s mining interests in Kansas and Arkansas. Mr. Barrett is a competent mining engineer, being recognized as one of the best authorities on coal mining.

Farming Interests.
In addition to mining the property the company has twenty-three farms under cultivation, a portion of them being leased to farmers and part worked by the company. These farms furnish all the necessary feed for the use of its live stock in addition to stocking the general stores with hay and feed to meet the requirements of the general trade. There is also a large pasturage for the horses and mules of the company, which at stated intervals are brought up from the mines and a chance to recuperate given them.

Sales Department.
In March, 1901, it was found necessary to organize a sales department, which was placed in charge of E. R. Dusky, with the title of general sales manager. With a coal mining proposition, as with any other, its success depends largely on its selling organization. The success of this department under Mr. Dusky has been exceptional and has made it possible for the operating department to reach its present dimensions.

In addition to the coal mined and shipped by the company, the sales department has been able to handle with profit a large percent of foreign coal, the sales of that item amounting in 1903 to about 3,500 cars.

The Fidelity Land & Improvement Company is rapidly becoming a prominent factor in the coal business of the southwest and with its present and contemplated production will within the coming year have an output of from 50,000 to 60,000 tons of coal a month.

The birth of what is now the Long-Bell Lumber Company was like that of many great men and organizations -- of very humble origin. On April 30, 1875, a carload of lumber was unloaded at the little town of Columbus, Cherokee county, Kansas. It was consigned to the firm of E. A. Long & Co. This firm consisted of Robert A. Long, Victor B. Bell and Robert White. The senior member of the firm was 25 years of age and his partners neither of them over 19. There was no money in the pockets of the young men, nor had they any bank account, but Mr. Bell’s father was president of the Kansas City Savings bank and Mr. White’s father its cashier, and through them the bank gave the budding firm the best of recommendations and when cash was required to make purchases loaned it to them on open account.

R. A. Long was yard manager, bookkeeper and general utility man and his lumber experience, as was that of his partners, very limited. It is said that when the first invoice was checked the items "dimensions" and "S 1 S & E" were not understood. This knowledge, however, was gradually assimilated and the firm soon became fullfledged retail lumbermen. This was the first chapter in the life of the Long-Bell Lumber Company.

When the Long yard was established at Columbus there was another yard doing business there -- that of Andy Allen. Mr. Allen feared there was not sufficient business to support two yards and offered to sell out to the new firm, which offer was accepted. This was two months after R. A. Long & Co. opened up for business.

The first year the firm earned $800; the second year $2,000, and then they thought of branching out, and as finances would permit other retail yards were established. This policy was continued and within six or eight years quite a number of yards were owned by the firm.

Two years after the establishment of the firm, or in 1877, Mr. White died and his interest was purchased by the surviving partners. In 1884 the company was incorporated with a capital stock of $300,000, which was paid for in full out of the earnings of the company. Yards were continually added as the company felt able to enlarge its operations and as favorable locations were discovered and today the total number is fifty-one, located in southern Kansas and Oklahoma Territory.

In 1889 a wholesale department was added and in 1891 the capital stock was increased to $500,000. Up to that time Mr. Long acted as superintendent and manager of the company’s interest, but when the wholesale department was added Samuel H. Wilson, Mr. Long’s brother-in-law, who had come with the old firm in 1877, was put in charge of the retail department and up to the time of his death, October 20, 1903, continued its supervision, he being vice president and assistant general manager. C. D. Morris was at that time placed in charge of the wholesale department.

Today with its fifty-one yards, employing 229 men, 172 horses and 50 wagons, carrying a stock of 25,000,000 feet, with annual sales of 43,500,000 feet of lumber, 47,500,000 shingles, 9,800,000 lath, 1,500,000 feet of battens, 2,500,000 feet of moldings, 25,000 barrels of lime, 12,000 barrels of cement, 21,500,000 pounds of coal, 7,413,000 pounds of cement plaster, 37,000 windows and 24,000 doors, is a big jump from the little yard at Columbus doling out a few hundred feet of lumber at a time.