| Sawmill
The Story of Cutting the Last Great Virgin Forest East
of the Rockies
Kenneth
L. Smith
Back
in print, a classic book on forestry history
Winner
of the Virginia C. Ledbetter Prize
Sawmill
is a history of logging in the Arkansas and Oklahoma Ouachita
Mountains from 1900 to 1950, a penetrating study of the lumber
industry, and a significant view of man’s interaction
with a major forest resource. It is also a social history
in its account of the lumbermen’s quest for the last
virgin timber and the effects of its depletion. Kenneth L.
Smith interviewed more than three hundred people to develop
this lively history of the cutting of virgin shortleaf pine
forests.
The Caddo River Lumber Company and the Arkansas mill towns
of Rosboro, Glenwood, and Forester provided jobs and homes
for many during the brief heyday of the big sawmills. Smith
takes a close look at several important timber companies,
and at the personality of T. W. Rosborough, a man who bought
and sold vast tracts of land and had an almost fatherly concern
for both white and black sawmill workers.
The recollections included here provide insight into a population
that lived through the Depression years in isolated mountain
communities where cats were sometimes sold as possum meat,
and where men enjoyed weekend “sip and sniff”
poker parties. The book is richly illustrated with photographs
from the time of the mills and includes a foldout map.
“A
valuable historical record of an era where written history
is sparse.”
—
Choice Magazine
"In
Arkansas, social history and the natural environment are closely
linked, and Ken Smith writes with a sharp eye on both. His
beautiful Buffalo
River Country remains a classic, his latest work,
the encyclopedic
Buffalo River Handbook, informs and delights,
but Sawmill may be his most important book. This
detailed account of logging in the Arkansas and Oklahoma Ouachita
Mountains during the first half of the 20th Century allows
the reader to walk the vast uncut forests, hear the bite of
the ax and the saw, and see the literal coming of age for
the lumber industry in Arkansas, along with its subsequent
passing.
A
great lover of Arkansas' natural heritage, Ken even-handedly
tells the story of the mills and the once virgin forests,
and of the people whose lives were intertwined with the fortunes
of the industry. And whether he is describing the intricate
dance between the sawyer and the band saw or the style of
the black baseball teams sponsored by the company, he writes
with genuine respect for the most significant accomplishment
of the era: large numbers of jobs, especially during the Depression.
In Ken's epilogue, the passing of the old cut-and-get-out
style of lumbering is recorded, and the mention of new companies,
like Weyerhaeuser Company, is made. Now, in first decade of
the 21st Century, as we face these "new" companies
moving on as well, Sawmill provides valuable backstory
for, of all things, the future."
—Dana
Steward, editor of A
Rough Sort of Beauty: Reflections on the Natural Heritage
of Arkansas
Kenneth
L. Smith is the author of The
Buffalo River Country and Illinois
River. In 1967 he was named Arkansas Conservationist
of the Year.
Sawmill
was originally published in 1986.
March
2006 (Originally published 1988)
260 pages, 100 photographs, index
7" x 10"
$17.95 (s) Paper
ISBN-10: 0-938626-69-8
ISBN-13: 978-0-938626-69-5
Forestry / Environmental Studies
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