| Historicial Development: | Ealand- Wood Lumber Company began in 1940 when the Sturgis Lumber Company bought a sawmill near Watson's Switch. Sturgis Lumber's ownership included Bill Sturgis, W. N. Wood, Pauline Quinlan, W. R. Wilson, and Joe P. Wood. In 1955, Sturgis Lumber sold out to a group, including W. N. Wood, F. A. Ealand, Donald R. Ealand, W. R. Wilson, John L. Allen, James L. Dean, and W. Arthur Scott. This group became Ealand-Wood Lumber Company.
The plant operated under the name of the Sturgis Lumber Company through at least 1957, for its mills at Hemphill and Jasper were listed in the name of Sturgis Lumber; no Ealand-Wood mill was listed at Hemphill, while a mill at Jasper was listed as cutting cypress, pine, and hardwoods. By 1959, the name had been changed to Ealand-Wood Lumber Company.
The Hemphill sawmill produced more than ten million board feet of lumber in 1960. The Hemphill plant was either closed or sold before 1966, for it does not appear in the Directory of Forest Products Industry,1966 edition although the plant at Jasper does.
On 30 March 1948, the Sturgis Lumber Company, with plants at Hemphill and Jasper, sold to M. L. Spinks the old Fisher Lumber Company sawmill and planing mill, which Sturgis Lumber had bought eighteen days earlier.
The CIO attempted to organize the plant in 1948 but failed in a vote of seventy-seven to twenty-two.
Drayton Speights, life-long resident of and lumberman in Sabine County, believes that the sawmill was sold to Georgia-Pacific with the other Ealand-Wood Lumber Company sawmills in 1966. If so, Georgia-Pacific may have dismantled the plant shortly thereafter.
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