| Historicial Development: | Lancaster Brothers were reported, in 1893, to be cutting 25,000 feet daily at Marshall. Harrison County records reveal that L. V. Lancaster's mill facility was located seventeen miles northwest of Marshall in 1897. Lancaster Brothers and L. V. Lancaster are the only Lancasters listed among three “Lancaster” entries in the data base. Bob Bowman, in an unsigned article in the Crosscut, note that the mill was destroyed by fire in 1893 and rebuilt as the Pine Ridge Lumber Company in 1895. In 1897, Lancaster mortgaged the following property: ten oxen and 138 iron or steel rails laid on his tram line. By the following year, the company was in financial straits. William Robertson, the Trustee, mortgaged the company with an individual named Fry for $100. Equipment included a Hoyt planer, a flooring machine, a matcher, a resaw, a moulder, a lathe, a rip saw, a scroll saw, a cut-off saw, an electric motor, all located about twelve miles from Marshall. The five mile differences between the main mill and the planing machinery indicates the possibility Lancaster Brothers may have had two integrated milling areas.
The American Lumberman reported that the Silax Lumber Company was incorporated in March 1901 for $20,000 by R. W. Grogan, W. R. Grogan, and William B. Cobb. In 1910, a Grogan Lumber deed record from Lancaster Brothers at Pine Ridge, sixteen miles northwest of Marshall, reveals that Lancaster Lumber had survived, for it owned a mill at Pine Ridge. Lancaster Bros sold the plant and the tram to the Grogans that year. But the Grogans at been at Pine Ridge for years, for R. W. Grogan lived in the old Lancaster residence just after 1900, and its switching yards were at Harleton in 1902. It is obvious that Grogan Lumber had been sawmilling at Pine Ridge since or before 1900.
Pine Ridge Lumber Company was listed in 1905 as manufacturing yellow pine lumber at Pine Ridge, as was Torrans Manufacturing Company.
See interpretative commentary. |