Miller & Vidor Lumber Company at Timber, Texas. (Excerpts from the American Lumberman, 1910)           Source: “Peach River Pine”, American Lumberman, October 8, 1910. Chicago, 1910.                 The Peach River Lumber Company was the first manufacturing lumber business that was created by the individual stockholders of the now Miller & Vidor Lumber Company. This company, which bad as its president C. H. Moore, as vice president A. W. Miller, and as secretary-treasurer C. S. Vidor, began operations at Timber, Tex., in 1902 and erected a 75,000 feet daily capacity circular saw mill at that point, which mill was destroyed by fire in February, 1909, and another was built at the same point six months later. The Peach River Lumber Company passed out in 1910, when the property was taken over by the Miller & Vidor Lumber Company. The Miller & Vidor Sawmill Company was established at Milvid, Tex., in December, 1906, when the sawmill town of Milvid was laid out, the name being a made word utilizing letters from the names of Messrs. Miller and Vidor for that purpose. There was constructed by the Miller & Vidor Sawmill Company a high class sawmilling plant of 100,000 feet daily capacity. The officers were C. H. Moore, president; A. W. Miller, vice president; C. S. Vidor, first vice president, and B. I. Sparks, secretary-treasurer. The properties of the United Lumber & Export Company of Beaumont, Tex., were purchased September 4, 1905, the purchasers taking over the saw mill, book accounts and 1,400 acres of timber lands. This business was incorporated as the Beaumont Sawmill Company with C. H. Moore president, A. W. Miller vice president, C. S. Vidor vice president, B. I. Sparks secretary treasurer and E. H. Green, jr., manager. This business was taken over by the Miller & Vidor Lumber Company and the Beaumont Sawmill Company, charter annulled in January, 1910. The Orange plant was started in January, 1907, and the Orange Sawmill Company formed with A. W. Miller president, C. S. Vidor secretary-treasurer and C. L. Hannah manager. This business was taken over by the Miller & Vidor Lumber Company in November, 1909.           Total Paid Capital Stock. The total paid up capital stock of the Miller & Vidor Lumber Company on account of these various purchases was in January, 1910, $1,500,000, comprising the four sawmill operations and the wholesale operation at Galveston, Tex. C. H. Moore is chairman of the board of directors; A. W. Miller, Galveston, Tex., is president of the company; C. S. Vidor, Galveston, Tex., first vice president; J. G. Berryhill, Des Moines, Iowa, 8. A. Lincoln, Alton, Iowa, and W. S. Slagle, Alton, Iowa, vice presidents, and B. I. Sparks, secretary treasurer. Messrs. C. H. Moore, Miller, Vidor, Berryhill, Lincoln, Slagle and Kilburn Moore are the seven directors of the company. The collateral managers of the business are: R. D. Gordon, general sales manager; W. J. Buhman, assistant sales manager; W. H. Brooks, auditor, and E. H. Green, jr., J. E. Hayner, C. L. Hannah and T. E. Meece, managers, respectively, at Beaumont, Milvid, Orange and Timber, Tex.           MILVID OPERATIONS. The earlier history of the Milvid operations of the Miller & Vidor Lumber Company has been taken care of elsewhere in a general history of the company and will have no part or parcel under the above general title. The operations at Milvid have always been handled along the general Miller & Vidor Lumber Company's lines of policy of manufacturing lumber as simply and therefore as cheaply as possible, without adopting ultra-modern methods because they happened to be fashionable or adhering to any old traditions simply because they were old. The simplicity of the growth of the LUMBERing operations at Milvid has therefore given a physical strength to the proposition that presages for it a most successful future. The Milvid operations are presided over by J. E. Hayner, a very superior all-around lumber manufacturer of large experience, who has as lieutenants the following named persons with the duties that are indicated in connection with their names: Sawmill foreman, J. E. Walker; planing mill foreman, W. Redding; woods foreman, J. B. Barrett; yard foreman, J. G. Rice; shipping clerk, B. B. Martin; checker, W. E. Porter; commissary, H. C. Wiley; physician, A. F. Cook; sawyer, W. Saddler; barber, H. O. Brown; time keeper, J. A. Nelson, jr.; cashier, G. E. Halliday; gang sawyer, A. A. Edge; filer, D. W. Cupps; filer, A. C. Kelly; chief engineer, James Kerr; master mechanic, Guss Krause.           Milvid Timber. The timber which will ultimately be cut in the mill at Milvid is located in Liberty and Hardin counties, Texas, as indicated on the painstakingly drawn map of the properties printed elsewhere in this article. The location of the timber as indicated by the map shows an ease of approach in future logging operations that will guarantee a minimum expense for the logging features of the business as compared with many other operations in the Southwest. The Miller & Vidor Lumber Company owns in these two counties about 40,000 acres of land containing yellow pine and hardwoods. The land is uniformly level and all of it will be logged easily. The yellow pine stumpage will readily amount to not less than 250,000,000 feet. The amount of hardwoods can not easily be estimated nor intelligently guessed at, but the hardwood trees that do exist on these lands are of a superior variety and will ultimately be brought to market. It is stated as a statistical fact taken from the records of the company that this timber has run to date an average of three and one-half logs to the thousand feet, 40 percent of the product running to upper grades. Of the lands owned by the company about 5,000 acres have been cut over and the timber which is left is of importance sufficient to warrant another cut within the probably active business life of the owners, for, as yet, the lands which have been cut over have not been put on the market for sale, although they are all of value for farming purposes, as will be shown elsewhere in this illustrated descriptive article. The yellow pine is of both the longleaf and shortleaf varieties, and it will be noticed by reference to the map exploiting this timber printed on another page that in its purchase it has been well bunched and also that it therefore controls other extensive tracts of yellow pine timber that in the nature of things might also come into the possession of this company, and that will be logged to the Milvid plant to be described herewith. The adjacent accessible pine might be estimated to be not less than 200,000,000 feet. Another source of log supply, as the map referred to will show, that must not be overlooked is a possibility of many millions of feet of pine to be taken from the Trinity river. A well situated booming ground has already been located, and as the lines of the Riverside & Gulf railroad are even now extended to that point the quantity of logs from that source must be considered to be of great import to the company. ====================================================================================================== Milvid Logging Operations. There is no Milvid logging camp after the manner of logging camps usually in connection with southern LUMBERing operations, for most of the sixty-one men employed by the company in the woods at this point live in Milvid and go out to their work at 5:45 o'clock every morning to the now "front," nine miles from the mill on spur No. 1, where the company is cutting the Nancy Gowan tract in Hardin county. No contract logging is done on this division of the Miller & Vidor Lumber Company's operations. Ten saws manipulated by twenty men cut the timber. The timber is drawn in to the right of way in these operations by a 4-line self propelling steam skidder. The capacity of the skidder is about 175,000 feet daily. Seven men in conjunction with a scaler operate the machine. The water for men and machines is brought from Milvid, where it is supplied from an artesian well, the water being transported to the woods in 15,000-gallon tank cars. After an accumulation of logs they are loaded by a self propelling steam log loader. This log loader has an average daily capacity of 150,000 feet of logs of all sizes. The logging capacity of this operation of the Miller & Vidor Lumber Company is easily 150,000 feet a day. In use in various parts of the woods operations are fourteen horses and eight mules. As the transportation of the logs belongs specifically to the Riverside & Gulf railroad, an independent railroad organization, that feature, collateral though it is to the LUMBERing operations, will be discussed elsewhere in this text as a separate matter. ====================================================================================================== Milvid Log Storage. The logs for the Milvid operation are dumped from the cars of the Riverside & Gulf railroad into a made pond near the Milvid mill which will hold 3,000,000 feet comfortably. This pond is fed by a flowing well. This well has a capacity of 100,000 gallons an hour and furnishes water for all other purposes around and about the plant, for filling the water tanks that are daily sent to the woods for the use of the men and stock and for keeping up steam in the skidder and loader. ====================================================================================================== Milvid Saw Mill. The saw mill of the Miller & Vidor Lumber Company at Milvid, Tex., is of a type several steps beyond the original primitive affairs of the South and Southwest and just enough steps this side of the last note in mill building to warrant the statement that it is of the type that the sawmill builders in yellow pine districts would do well to copy if they are to take into their calculations the matter of steady profits in the production of lumber. A picture of this mill is shown on the title page of this story to — in a way — accentuate this idea. It is a type of the not underbuilt and the not overbuilt saw mill; and the picture is used with the idea of emphasizing the desirability of that class as opposed to others that have fallen short on account of their shortcomings or on account of being too elaborate. This sawmill building at Milvid stands about north and south in general direction and the main building is 41x250 feet in area. This mill was erected in 1906 and began operating in the fall of 1907 and has been altogether very successful in every way. The boiler house is in the shape of an addition to the main building and is 42x52 feet in area. The main building is two and one-half stories high, as the frontispiece will indicate. The lower story is 18 feet in the clear, the second 12 feet and the third 12 feet. The framing of the lower story is 12x12 and of the second story it is 10x10. The boiler house contains a battery of four boilers 72 inches in diameter and 18 feet long. Fuel used is sawdust, largely, balance being surplus shavings blown from the planing mill. The engine room contains one slide valve engine 16x24 in length. Another engine, 16x24, runs the live rolls, transfers, trimmers and cutoff saws. On the lower floor of this building are a Wilkin-Challoner Hoo-Hoo "nigger," a steam log decker, a mechanical hog, lifting devices etc. The log haulup is 125 feet long and is fitted with countershafts at the necessary points. On the saw floor at the log entrance is a William E. Hill steam drag saw. The log deck was built and furnished by the Filer & Stowell Company, Milwaukee, Wis., as also was the right hand, 14-inch 9-foot wheel, band mill. The carriage is a Filer & Stowell, as also is the 11-inch, 42-foot shotgun feed. Also on this floor are a Wilkin-Challoner 42-saw gang mill and a Diamond Iron Works trimmer. The daily capacity of this mill, ten hours, board measure, is 100,000 feet. ====================================================================================================== Good Lumber at Milvid. Lumber is all transferred to the west side of the tail of the saw mill to chains 150 feet long. The B and better lumber is pulled from the chains on the south side and stacked on dry kiln trucks and shoved on to transfer cars which are moved to the rear end of the dry kilns by cable. The steam dry kilns of this plant dry about 45,000 feet daily. The lumber passes from the dry kilns to a cooling shed, where it is taken down and separated into lengths and widths and put on the dollies and stored in a rough shed if it is not wanted immediately at the planing mill for necessary orders; in that case it is trucked directly from the rough shed to the planing mill. That part of the lumber which is to go by export and which goes to the shed is always piled loose for shipment in large lots. The rough shed referred to is northwest of the dry kilns 200 feet and contains two runways, is 148x104 feet in area and will hold 1,500,000 feet in lumber. The planing mill of the Milvid operations is in a building 76x105 feet in area standing in the same general direction as the saw mill as to the points of compass, and is located about 600 feet from the north end of the saw mill. The planing mill boiler house contains three boilers made by the Fulton Steam Boiler Works, of Richmond, Ind., each 66 inches in diameter and 18 feet long. The engine room is located at the south end of the planing mill and contains a 24x40 Hamilton-Corliss engine built on concrete foundations. The planing mill contains six Berlin machines, one resaw and one 3-saw edger. In the filing rooms are the usual complement of automatic knife grinders and the necessary tools customarily in use for filing purposes. The dressed lumber shed is about 200 feet from the planing mill and will hold about 500,000 feet of lumber. It has been built so that it can readily be extended to whatever capacity the plant necessitates. ====================================================================================================== Common Lumber at Milvid. The common lumber is taken from the chains at the mill and hauled by mules to the piling grounds, where it is placed in low piles which at present run in four rows, the piling grounds aggregating about ten acres. The timbers go directly out of the north end of the saw mill to the dock or ramp and are skidded to an incline on the east. The side tracks of the Riverside & Gulf railway pass along these ramps and the timbers are very readily loaded directly to the cars for shipment. ====================================================================================================== Milvid Shipping Facilities. The side tracks of the Riverside & Gulf railway mentioned as running conveniently near for export shipment are extended along from the timber docks to the planing mill and will readily hold an average train of cars. The shipments both for export and for the interior are given first to the Riverside & Gulf road, which has joint traffic relations with the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railway at Milvid Junction, situated at the junction point of the Riverside & Gulf railway and the great trunk line mentioned, about one and one-half miles from the town of Milvid. The Santa Fe system has direct connections at Beaumont with the Southern Pacific; with its own Interstate & Gulf branch to Port Bolivar, the export point; and with the Kansas City Southern and the Frisco system. At Conroe, Tex., west from Milvid, the Santa Fe connects with the International & Great Northern and at Cleveland, Tex. — a point between Milvid and Conroe — connection is made with the Houston, East & West Texas and Houston & Shreveport railways. The Riverside & Gulf railway does the switching. ====================================================================================================== Fire Protection. The fire protection at Milvid is very superior both as to the equipment of the engines and as to the piping, which permeates all portions of the yards and plant. In the way of tanks are one underground covered tank that holds 50,000 gallons of water and an elevated tank, built of cypress, which holds 70,000 gallons, both of which are supplied by water from a 4-inch 100,000-gallon per hour well, which is 680 feet deep and which has also been referred to elsewhere, and which practically supplies all the water used in the pond, for general use of employees and for other purposes. The fire pumps are two Knowles, each 10x12x16. The piping throughout the yards is as to its mains 6 inches in diameter and the laterals are of diameter proportionate, in all cases. The plant is furnished with forty-six hydrants and [has?] not less than 180 barrels filled with water at all [times?], for the emptying of which 180 buckets are used. There are thirty-one hose houses, erected for fire purposes, each of which contains 100 feet of 2-1/2 inch [hose?]. There are two hose carts for general use, each [conveying?] 200 feet of hose. ====================================================================================================== Milvid Lights and Telephones. Milvid has splendid telephone connection with the outside world over the Southwestern Telephone lines of the Bell system and it has a private line connecting the offices, the depot of the Santa Fe system at Milvid Junction, the business of T. B. Allen & Co. at Allen, Tex., the logging front and the shops, so that practically all departments of the operation can inter-communicate. All trains are operated by telephone. There is connection with the independent lines at Cleveland and from Cleveland through to Beaumont, where the Bell system connects. The electric lights at Milvid are supplied with a 25-kilowatt, 160-ampere, 220-volt apparatus operated by a 15x24 engine made at the W. P. Adams shop, at Corinth, Miss. To its plant are attached and nightly operated forty 32-candle power lamps, 300 16-candle power lamps and six arc lamps. ====================================================================================================== Important Milvid Miscellanies. At Milvid is located the machine shop of the Riverside & Gulf railway, and at this shop the sawmill repairs are made. Milvid maintains a general merchandise store, a high class meat market, an ice house, drug store, ice cream parlor, barber shop etc. The business of the general merchandise store will run probably $125,000 yearly, that of the meat market probably $15,000, of the ice house $2,500 annually, and a business of about $3,500 is done in the drug store and $2,000 in the ice cream parlor. There is a union church at Milvid for the public use of any and all denominations. Services are maintained there by the Baptist and Methodist sects and the church is also used for a school, lodge room, and for entertainments. At an extensive hotel the unmarried employees find accommodations of a superior nature. Milvid contains all told about 1,200 inhabitants. Milvid can be reached by Western Union telegraph and has Wells-Fargo express facilities. The town is located on the Riverside & Gulf railway about one and one-half miles south from the station of Milvid Junction, on the Santa Fe system, and contains about 125 houses, graded streets, bath houses etc. The town will soon be incorporated.                                               [top]   Text and images were digitized and proofread from the original source documents by Murry Hammond. Contact Murry for all corrections, additions, and contributions of new material.