Research: Sawmill Database

Alpha-Numeric Key:	CK-17
Corporate Name:	Charlie Work
Local Name:
Owner Name:	Charlie Work. Albert A. Atkinson.
Location:	Price' Switch: 3212 and railroad tracks
County:	Cherokee
Years in Operation:	32 years
Start Year:	1897
End Year:	1928
Decades:	1890-1899,1900-1909,1910-1919,1920-1929
Period of Operation:	1897 to at least 1928
Town:	Price's Switch
Company Town:	2
Peak Town Size:	Unknown
Mill Pond:
Type of Mill:	1900: Lumber, cotton, cornmeal. Lumber. 1928: Shortleaf yellow pine. Sawmill Pine Sawmill Hardwood Sawmill Cypress Sawmill Planer Planer Only Shingle Paper Plywood Cotton Grist Unknown Other
Power Source:	Steam Horse Mule Oxen Water Water Overshot Water Turbine Diesel Unknown Pit Steam Steam Circular Steam Band Gas Electricity Other
Maximum Capacity:	15000: 190620000: 1928
Capacity Comments:	15,000 feet daily in 1906; 20,000 feet in 1928.
Produced:	Rough Lumber Planed Lumber Crossties Timbers Lathe Ceiling Unknown Beading Flooring Paper Plywood Particle Board Treated Other
Equipment:	1900: Sawmill, two gins, grist mill. 1928: Circular sawmill with edgers.
Company Tram:
Associated Railroads:	International and Great Northern
Historicial Development:	In 1897, Albert A. Atkinson purchased from Dilley sawmill machinery including a planer-matcher and a resaw. Atkinson's planing mill at Jacksonville was located on the southeast corner of of South Front and Caney roads, on the south side of the International & Great Northern railroad tracks. Power was provided by a 50-horsepower steam engine. In 1900, Atkinson bought from Dilley a sawmill, a planer, a resaw, a moulder-matcher, an iron-frame sawbench, an Ames steam engine 11-inch by 12-inch, a #8 44-inchby 14-foot Ames boiler, and a 6-foot Curtis iron saw frame. Albert A. Atkinson was listed in the “Lumber Mills of Texas,” Southern Industrial and Lumber Review, at Jacksonville as a small manufacturer of 15,000 feet daily. He was listed the next year in the Reference Book of the Lumbermen's Credit Association, January 1907. He had opened another sawmill at Ponta in 1904. He was listed more than twenty years later in the 1928 edition of the Southern Lumberman's Directory of American Saw Mills and Planing Mills. Cherokee County chattel mortgages record that his industrial plant first included the sawmill, a planer, a grist mill, a cotton press, and two cotton gins. The first mill was located initially near Bird Pond, east of Mud Creek and south of Highway 79. It was later moved by 1907 to Prices Switch, on the tracks of the International and Great Northern, just east of the Neches River. A Cherokee County registered chattel mortgage refers to lumber being shipped from the mill “near Ironton.” Sometime thereafter, Atkinson sold the mill to Charlie Work. Work later added a planer after the mill burned in the early 1930s, which was the first planer in the area. Apparently the mill did not survive the Depression.
Research Date:	JKG 8-23-93, MCJ 12-08-95
Prepared By:	J. Gerland, M Johnson