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THE THOMPSON & TUCKER LUMBER COMPANY.
In the above division of this story was recounted the lumber history of the Thompson family, to and including the assumption of the management of the Thompson & Tucker Lumber Company by Hoxie H. Thompson, which necessarily, of course, included mention of the first seven mills of the Thompsons and the building of "Mill Number Eight."
The matter under the above divisional heading of "The Thompson & Tucker Lumber Company" will take up the history of the company and will describe "Mill Number Eight."
Willard, Tex., the home of the company, contains about 750 inhabitants, has long distance telephone connection, an American Express office, is situated twenty-six miles from Trinity and forty-one miles from Colmesneil.
The present officers of this company are J. Lewis Thompson, president; Thomas S. Foster, first vice president; Alexander Thompson, second vice president; Liggett N. Thompson, secretary, and Hoxie H. Thompson, treasurer. The directors are J. Lewis Thompson and Liggett N. Thompson, Houston, Tex.; Hoxie H. Thompson and Alexander Thompson, Doucette, Tex.; T. T. Beall, Willard, Tex.; Thomas S. Foster and Benjamin B. Foster, of Kansas City, Mo., and W. P. Wallace, Grayburg, Tex.
At present the employees of the Thompson & Tucker Lumber Company at Willard number 174, divided as follows: in the timber, 2; in the woods, 35; on the railroad, 18; working in log storage, 3; in the saw mill, 29; in the planing mill, 18; in the dry kilns, 15; yarding, skidding and shipping, 40; in fire protection, 4; in machine shops, 2; 4 each in the mercantile department and in the mill offices.
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Woods Work at Willard.
The logging has always been done under the direct supervision of the manager of the plant. It has been the rule of the company for the manager to visit the woods every day and, in the most particular sense, to keep his personal hand directly on this basic lever of the business.
This plan is one of the business principles inherited from John M. Thompson, emulated by Benjamin F. Thompson and followed by all of his successors, and is a tradition of the old days worth continuing.
It was a saying of B. F. Thompson that "the man who knows the most about the logging is the best mill man."
The Thompsons have always been woodsmen and they have been individually and particularly interested always in the building of all the logging road necessary to further logging interests at Willard, beginning with the location of the road and ending with the laying of the rail.
No steam skidding or steam loading has been used at the Willard operations, and until 1898 oxen were used exclusively in the timber work. In the very early days in the middle ?80s the logs were hauled in over a wooden tram. After these days leaned toward the '90s—in 1887 in fact—the Thompsons bought their first locomotive, a Porter, which was named "Hoxie," and that locomotive, strong and sinewy and agile, is still, in its twenty-first year, hauling in logs at Willard. In 1891 they bought another Porter engine of the same type as the "Hoxie" and used those two locomotives until 1902, and in that year purchased another of the same type, and all are now in commission.
The writer saw the little "Hoxie," as tough as a pine knot, and as sure on its wheels as a burro is upon its feet, pulling in a fifteen car train not long since. In 1898 the loading on the cars in the woods was given over to mules, the usual system of chains and top-loading.
During the history of the operations at Willard there have been only five different woods foremen.
The woods operations of this company are now carried on at one camp, about a mile from Willard, the loading being done by one crew using two horses and a relief team, handling 90,000 feet of logs daily. Employed in the woods work at Willard are thirty-five men who work directly for the company, none of the logging being done by contract, and these men use in their work thirty-five mules, four horses, but no oxen.
It has always been the policy of the Thompson & Tucker Lumber Company to have its logs cut as long as possible in the woods and then have them resawn at the mill.
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The Timber Lands at Willard.
It is a matter of known history that when Capt. John Martin Thompson came to Willard, or the place where Willard now stands, in his search for pine land, in the latter part of 1881, his first purchase was 640 acres. This same land would easily cut 6,000 feet to the acre today.
During the first five years of the stay of John Martin Thompson and his associates at Willard they manufactured 40,000,000 feet of yellow pine lumber from 2,000 acres of land, and it is hardly probable that another such record of lumber production can he shown in Texas or the entire south.
Of the 18,889 acres cut over by the Thompson & Tucker Lumber Company since 1882 only about 8,000 acres are held by them in fee simple, and it is safe to estimate that now standing is available merchantable timber on those 8,000 acres of not less than 40,000,000 feet, and it is the judgment of J. Lewis Thompson—who is the expert timber man of the Thompson brothers—that in twenty-six years more on this 8,000 acres 60,000,000 feet of merchantable timber will be in shape to lumber again.
Fifteen miles is the longest distance which timber has been hauled to the Willard mill and thirty miles is the longest distance it would have to be hauled if all the timber possessions of the Thompson & Tucker Lumber Company were finally manufactured at Willard. If ultimately a mill should be built in the center of the present timber holdings only an average ten miles haul would be necessary to get all the timber.
In the entire history of the company up to date the total cut at Willard has been about 300,000,000 feet, and in bringing the timber to the saw has been built, all told, not to exceed 200 miles of railroad, inclusive of spur tracks.
Up to the time of his retirement from business in 1902 Capt. John M. Thompson purchased all the timber, and the personal land looking methods of John Martin Thompson have been emulated by his son, J. Lewis Thompson, who has bought in this manner all the timber the company has acquired since 1902.
This timber of the Thompson & Tucker Lumber Company compares favorably with the famous Calcasieu parish timber of Louisiana and divides the honors equally between the two sections for first place in regard to the character and quantity of product of longleaf yellow pine lands.
It has been the experience of the Thompson & Tucker Lumber Company that when manufactured into yard stock its timber has averaged for twenty-five years 60 percent No. 1 common; 25 percent "B" and better, and 15 percent No. 2 and poorer.
The timber holdings of the Thompson & Tucker Lumber Company are located in Trinity and Polk counties, Texas, and the millsite at Willard is very near the county line, which follows a diagonal direction from southwest to northeast, so that the larger body of the timber is in Polk county, southward from the mill. The whole tract, fee simple, and the acres for which contracts have been made since 1882, equals 59,536 acres and in the years that have gone 18,889 acres have been cut over and 478,215,000 feet of yellow pine timber is yet standing on 40,647 acres of land, which will make the present average about 12,000 feet to the acre, an estimate of the standing pine regarded as very low.
Only a small portion of the holdings is shortleaf yellow pine, while in the very gently rolling area east of the Trinity river which forms the western boundary of Polk county, and in that county, are located forests of the finest and probably the largest longleaf yellow pine in Texas, and possibly in the south.
An inspection of this timber was made which contemplated and included a drive nearly 200 miles long, and it can be said unhesitatingly that there is not in the south a finer tract of merchantable timber.
On the Reuben Barrow survey, the John Burgess league, the George Smith survey, the Thomas Cartwright league, and many of the International & Great Northern railway sections the difficulty in photographing was in deciding just where the very best timber actually was. It was all so fine that pictures could be made in any position all about equally effective, and an entire issue of the AMERICAN LUMBERMAN would not contain all the fine pictures made there.
Though essentially a longleaf yellow pine proposition, the proportion of hardwoods in the creek bottoms is remarkable. On the N. McGruder survey, thirty miles southeast of Willard, in the Menard creek bottom, was found some of the largest hardwood timber known, comparing favorably with the best in the Arkansas low lands. Red and white oak, ash, gum and hickory of the largest size were in abundance, as well as many other valuable woods, and no inconsiderable amount of shortleaf pine.
By very careful and recent estimating of the timber of all kinds on the Thompson & Tucker possessions were found, besides the longleaf pine previously referred to, the following named hardwoods: White oak, 16,020,000 feet; red oak, 4,370,000 feet; ash, 2,585,000 feet; gum, 3,850,000 feet; hickory, 1,030,000 feet.
No count has been given this writer concerning the amount of shortleaf pine in these bottoms, but taking the figures given above on hardwoods, and those previously quoted concerning the now standing longleaf pine on the possessions of this company, and adding the 27,855,000 feet of hardwoods mentioned, shows that the minimum total amount of standing timber in the possession of this company is in the neighborhood of 506,170,000 feet.
In general the logging operations of this entire tract present the most favorable conditions. The soil drains readily. The general slope of the land is moderate. Few streams of an annoying character are found and a much smaller proportion of creek bottoms is encountered than usually is found in that section.
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Logging Road at Willard.
Some reference has necessarily been made to the railroad used in the logging operations at Willard in the exploitation of the woods work, but the railroading of the Thompson & Tucker Lumber Company is of enough importance to be dignified by a special subhead.
Since the beginning of the business in 1882 something like 200 miles of tram road of various characters has been laid. The first road was built with wooden rails, and wooden rails were used from 1882 to 1887. Since that date the road has been a narrow gage, and at present there are only about six miles of this road, counting main line and spurs. The rail used is 35 pounds in weight. The road is owned and operated by the Thompson & Tucker Lumber Company and has not been put under a separate corporation.
Three locomotives are in commission, all of the H. K. Porter type, and in weight 14, 19 and 23 tons. In use are forty logging cars, one feed car, one caboose and two water cars. The work of the railroad is accomplished by eighteen men.
The railroad building at Willard has always been a comparatively simple matter, the land being so level and the undergrowth so sparse that railroad building never showed any very marked problems for solution.
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Log Storage at Willard.
Up until 1898, when J. Lewis Thompson took the management of the Thompson & Tucker Lumber Company at Willard, the logs at the mill had been dumped upon a simple skidway and hauled into the mill by chain. When J. Lewis Thompson took charge of the affair he at once constructed a log pond. This pond will now hold about 500,000 feet of logs and is fed by drainage and by a force pump from a storage pond located three-eights of a mile south of the log pond which storage pond covers twenty-acres.
The logs are pulled into the mill by the usual haulup chain and a Filer & Stowell drag saw is provided to cut the logs into proper length, as it will be remembered that the logs at this place and generally at the mills in which the Thompson brothers have interests are cut into long lengths.
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The Saw Mill at Willard.
The saw mills erected at Willard have been worn out where they stood and never destroyed by fire, and in fact, to the date of the taking of the notes for this portion of this article, July 18, 1908, fire has not disturbed the Thompson sawmilling affairs for thirty years and prior to that the destruction had been only a small loss in each case, the burning of cheap and primitive structures.
The other mills erected at Willard have already been referred to in the "Fifty-Six Years of History" department of this illustrated article, and just here will be given a short technical description of the mill now at Willard.
This mill was constructed under the direction of B. F. Thompson in 1888, began making lumber in June, 1889, and stands about a quarter of a mile northeast from the station of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas road at Willard. It is in dimensions 50x232 feet and has a sorting table 38x100 feet. The main engine room, of 24x56 feet, is situated to the east of the saw mill plant.
The power to run this saw mill plant is contained in two boiler houses, one upon the east and the other upon the west side of the plant. The east side boiler house, 40x50 feet in area, contains four Huntsville boilers, each 50 inches in diameter and 16 feet long. The west side boiler house, 36x56 feet in area, contains three Casey-Hedges Company's boilers, each 60 inches in diameter and 16 feet long.
The main engine room, east of the saw mill building, is 24x56 feet in area; the secondary engine room is under the mill and is 16x24 feet in area.
The main engine of this mill is a wonderful affair and illustrates the care the Thompson people take of their machinery and incidentally the careful and harmonious building of the engine itself. It is 20x42 inches and is the particular engine which ran the machinery in the machinery building at the great World's Fair held in New Orleans in 1884. Twenty-four years is a pretty long time for an engine fly wheel to revolve with profit to its owner, but they do sometimes, and each piece of machinery of this sort is certainly worth a stick of type in compliment.
This engine referred to above drives the front end of the mill, the carriage, steam feed, nigger etc.
Another or secondary engine, located in the secondary engine room, under the mill, in size 16x18, was built by the Ames Iron Works and drives the back end of the mill, elevator, trimmer, transfer chains etc.
On the saw floor of this saw mill is an Allis 4-block carriage which handles timbers up to 44 feet. This carriage is governed by a 1-inch shotgun feed and the head blocks set by an Allis-Chalmers Company "Trout'' set works. The Thompsons consider this setworks one of the best improvements they ever put into their mill at Willard, and that it has, as J. Lewis Thompson put it, "changed their mill carriage from a man-killer to a man-saver."
On this saw floor are a double edger and a 32-foot Lufkin Foundry & Machine Works trimmer.
The file room at Willard, in an ell built on the west side of the mill proper, contains all of the latest automatic sawfiling devices for filing circular saws of all sizes and kinds. A small engine transmits power to this filing room.
The saw mill proper is a circular with top saw, has an average day run of 80,000 feet, will cut 160,000 feet day and night and has produced regularly for many years about 18,000,000 feet of lumber annually. This entire saw mill plant is manipulated by twenty-nine men.
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Planing Mill at Willard.
The planing mill is a little beyond the store, office buildings and station at Willard, and was also built in 1888 under B. F. Thompson, then manager of the business. It is contained in a building 85x150 feet in area. It is manipulated by eighteen men; thirty-five men could take care of it in a night and day run. This mill will produce 125,000 feet day run on an average the year round, or 200,000 feet of properly manufactured stock, day and night run, and may be credited with an annual capacity of 20,000,000 feet.
The engine room of the planing mill, and the boiler house, are at the west end of the planing mill building. The boiler house is 30x40 feet in area and the engine room is 14x40 feet in area. Of the planing mill's three boilers one is a Casey-Hedges Company's, 40 inches in diameter and 16 feet long, and the other a Huntsville product 48 inches in diameter and 16 feet long.
One engine, 18x36 in size, drives the planing mill. This planing mill contains one J. A. Fay sizer, 12x30; one Fay matcher, 8x20; one Fay matcher, 3x9; one S. A. Woods molder, 6x12; one Houston molder, 6x7; one American self-feed rip saw; one Williamsport Machine Company 2-saw edger; one J. A. Fay 24-inch circular resaw; one J. A. Fay band resaw, 50-inch wheel, 5-inch blades; one picket header; four swing cutoff saws, and one Byrkett-Hall lath machine.
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Following Good Lumber at Willard.
In discussing the handling of the good lumber at Willard a description of the dry kiln and of the sheds will be included because these accessories have intimately to do with that division of the mill product.
The particular feature of this part of the lumber handling, as a matter of fact, is a lumber shed—like any other lumber shed from the outside but inside altogether the most convenient storage place for finished lumber this writer has ever seen, and yet so simple in construction and arrangement that its later description will not take half a stick of type.
The good lumber in clears is taken to the kilns on dollies, as is the rough lumber to the yards. This lumber is stacked by hand in front of the kiln, 110 yards southeast of the saw mill and located between the saw mill and the big lumber sheds to be mentioned later.
This dry kiln, of the National type and the first of its kind erected in Texas, is built of brick throughout and contains three rooms, each 20x108 feet in area. Steam is fed to the kiln from the boilers located on the west side of the saw mill. The capacity of these three rooms is 40,000 feet of dry lumber daily. This kiln was built in 1901 by Capt. Cad H. Beale, of Montgomery, Ala.
The lumber is taken from the kiln to what is known as the big rough shed, 250 feet farther south, which is 110 by 350 feet in area and holds 3,500,000 feet. This is known as rough shed No. 1. In it is stored the general rough stock. Northwest of this shed, at least 500 feet, is rough shed No. 2, which cannot be exactly credited with any particular capacity in feet but which is 60x200 feet in area; in it are stored all the mill cuts, all the short pieces three feet and longer which come over the trimmer, and anything which will make a picket or molding strip. This stuff is stored until the capacity of the shed is exhausted and then it is worked up.
Southeast 301 feet of the rough shed, known as No. 1, is the very superior shed referred to in the introductory paragraph of this department. This shed is also 110x350 feet in size, is very simply and strongly built and, unlike most other sheds, is not arranged to carry all of each particular thing in a separate stall. Describing it simply, it is divided up into units—narrow stalls, each about three feet wide, all the same size—which accommodate absolutely every length, width, grade and whatsoever character of lumber, each in some separate place.
In piling the stuff this way the interior of the shed is more fully utilized than if a certain division, set aside for a particular kind of lumber, is arbitrarily held for that particular grade, length etc.; for the uniform size of the bins and their comparative smallness enable the manufacturer at all times to utilize all or practically all of the space.
There are stalls especially adapted to pickets and bed slats to hold all the stock on hand in those articles, but the rest of the shed is divided up in the "unit method" mentioned.
The Thompson & Tucker Lumber Company makes a great specialty of all around yard stock for retail yards. No order is too intricate or contains too great a number of items for it to fill. The endeavor of this company is to keep every grade, length and otherwise dimension of longleaf yellow pine lumber to fill at all times a healthy demand.
The dry kiln is taken care of by fifteen men, and the yards, sheds and shipments are handled by forty men. This, of course, contemplates a day run of the mill.
The average 1908 shipments of lumber from the Thompson & Tucker Lumber Company to July 1 were 1,500,000 feet a month.
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Following Common Lumber at Willard.
The rough lumber is put on dollies from the sorter and, if common boards, piece stuff and the like, is taken to the yard southwest of the mill and piled down and up.
At Willard is piling ground for from 5,000,000 to 6,000,000 feet of this sort of stock, for there as elsewhere at the mills of these interests lumber is made particularly and entirely for sale the moment it is dry, whatever may be the market price.
It has always been the policy of the Thompson interests, as inaugurated at Willard, to ship as much as they cut each year. They figure that it is cheaper to carry the lumber in the tree than in the yard.
Of course some of the rough common lumber goes on through to the dry kiln if necessary, but the greater amount is taken direct to the yard as mentioned above.
The Thompsons have always put as much of their common stuff through the kilns as they could, and this policy of the business at Willard is carried out at their other plants.
The timbers go directly out from the south end of the saw mill to a loading dock about 1,000 feet long, and thence are loaded directly on cars for distribution to all parts of the country.
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Fire Protection at Willard.
The fire protection furnished the Thompson & Tucker Lumber Company consists of modern apparatus in every detail and is worthy of special mention.
The water supply is furnished from two artificial lakes, one containing about eight acres and of average depth four feet, and the other containing four acres with average depth five feet.
The water is handled through one Gardner duplex 8x5x10 fire pump, through 2,790 feet of 6-inch, 1,100 feet of 4-inch, 1,900 feet of 3-inch and 960 feet of 2-inch pipe, laid so as to reach all portions of the plant and town of Willard.
A proper amount of hose—about 450 feet of 1-1/2 and 850 feet of 2-1/2—being distributed to about thirty hydrants and to one hose cart.
There is no organized hose company, all help in case of fire being voluntary.
There are two tanks, one elevated to 100 feet, 20x20x16 feet in size, and one elevated to thirty feet, 14x14x12 feet in size.
Arranged at proper intervals about the plant and lumber storage places are 128 water barrels and 120 fire buckets for quick emergency service. Four men are employed regularly as watchmen.
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Shipping From Willard.
In front of the planing mill, on the north side of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railway track, is a dock, 700 feet long, at which fifteen cars can be loaded at one time very comfortably. Another track running parallel with the rough timber dock holds, and on it can be loaded at the same time, twenty cars.
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Willard Miscellany.
Under this head will be recounted all the matters ox public interest concerning the plant at Willard which particularly interest the people who live there and, naturally, those who contemplate taking up residence in Willard to work in the saw mill at that point.
A merchandising business has been built up at Willard which not only accommodates those working for the Thompson & Tucker Lumber Company, but which is also of interest to the many farmers whose numbers are increasing steadily in that locality. A stock of from $14,000 to $16,000 worth of goods is carried at all times. This business is in charge of a practical merchant whose general orders from the management are to ''Please the people at living prices to all concerned," an order carried out to the letter. The business is divided as to its location, the mercantile business proper being carried on in a many sided and variously erected building which has been added to as the business grew throughout the years. The drug business is carried on in a separate building where also are located the postoffice, ice cream parlor etc. The mercantile and drug business together amount to $50,000 a year.
The matter of public worship is painstakingly looked after by the management of all the Thompson institutions wherever situated. Capt. Jack Wagner, who runs the passenger train on the "Trinity Tap" who next to the pine trees is the oldest resident of that section of Texas, said recently: "Nearly the first thing Capt. J. M. Thompson built after the mill and office at Willard was the church. We bring our train from Trinity to Colmesneil in the Sunday school and church hours, and it was a long time—some years in fact—when the only church bell we heard on Sunday morning, between Trinity and Colmesneil, was the church bell at Willard." The church for the white people was the first one erected on the "Trinity Tap."
Now at Willard are a union church for whites, a union church for negroes, a commodious schoolhouse for whites, another for negroes and lodge rooms for both whites and negroes.
Free schools were instituted at Willard when the plant was under the management of William Pressley Thompson, and after that the company took the matter up and has promoted free schools ever since.
A high class electric light plant for the benefit of the saw mill, planing mill etc., also in the interest of the town of Willard, is maintained by the Thompson & Tucker Lumber Company in an engine room 20x40 feet in area. The dynamo is a 45 kilowatt, built by the Commercial Electric Company, Indianapolis, Ind. The current is direct. The lamps are in number 450, 16-candle power; 50, 32-candle power, and 19 arc lamps.
Telephone connection at Willard is obtained through the Southwestern Telephone & Telegraph Company, and so greatly has the system improved in the past two years that one is able to get good connection between Willard and Kansas City, St. Louis and Chicago. The telegraph connection is Western Union via Corrigan, Tex.
The health of the community is looked after by a competent physician, working through the management of the lumber company. |
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