Research: Sawmill Database

Alpha-Numeric Key: SB-3
Corporate Name: Southern Long Leaf Company
Local Name:
Owner Name: Originally, Southern Long Leaf Lumber Company; then most likely Ragley-McWilliams or possibly Garrison-Norton Lumber Company. Ragley-Saner Lumber Company.
Location: McClain's Switch, one mile north of Pineland on highway 1
County: Sabine
Years in Operation: 10 years
Start Year: 1904
End Year: 1913
Decades: 1900-1909,1910-1919
Period of Operation: Southern, 1904; Ragley-McWilliams, Ragley-Saner, 1906/1907 to 1913.
Town: McClain's Switch (Rush, Pineland)
Company Town: 1
Peak Town Size: Pineland: 1905: 800; 1988: 1,118
Mill Pond:
Type of Mill: In 1905: rough and finished lumber.
Sawmill Pine Sawmill Hardwood Sawmill Cypress Sawmill
Planer Planer Only Shingle Paper
Plywood Cotton Grist Unknown
Other
Power Source: 80-horsepower steam engine
Horse Mule Oxen Water
Water Overshot Water Turbine Diesel Unknown
Pit Steam Steam Circular Steam Band
Gas Electricity Other
Maximum Capacity: 40000: 1905
Capacity Comments: In 1905, 40,000 feet daily from the saw and 50,000 feet daily from the planer
Produced:
Rough Lumber Planed Lumber Crossties Timbers
Lathe Ceiling Unknown Beading
Flooring Paper Plywood Particle Board
Treated Other
Equipment: 1905: Single circular sawmill and forty-horsepower planer (Mississippi matcher, edger, cut-off saw, resaw, another matcher soon). Circular saw, shotgun feed, cutoff saw, edger, trimmers.
Company Tram:
Associated Railroads: Gulf, Coast (or Beaumont), and Santa Fe
Historicial Development: F. A. Hornbeck of Kansas City, the president of Southern Long Leaf Lumber Company, in 1904, built a lumber mill at McClain's Switch, a mile from Rush and close to Pineland. Neither McClain's Switch nor Rush is listed in the 1905 and 1907 editions of the Reference Book of the Lumbermen's Credit Association, but a newspaper report of 1905 notes the Southern Long Leaf Lumber Company sawmill at Brookeland as does the Reference Book for 1905. Yet the Reference Book notes it at Pineland in 1907. The Reference Book used close-by, recognizable place names, and settled on using Pineland. Joseph D. Labrie sold sixty acres of land and the sawmill and improvement Southern Long Leaf had made on the land. A fly-wheel problem shut the mill down for forty days in March and April 1905. By April 1905 the planer was operating. That year, Hornbeck's mill was sawing 40,000 feet and planing 50,000 feet daily. Hornbeck lost timberland to Ragley-McWilliams, when they picked up a note he could not honor. Hornbeck sold to Ragley-McWilliams another 1,500 acres for $21,148 cash and $11,000 in notes. He was in financial trouble with Houston, Standard, and Gamble (makers and financiers of sawmill machinery and equipment), allowing W. Y. Garrison and J. A. Kelly of Garrison-Norton Lumber Company the opportunity to provide further pressure on Southern Long Leaf. W. T. Block believes that because of the Ragley-McWilliams August 1906 size of the sale price, must have included the mill although it was not so stated.
Research Date: JKG 10-20-93, MCJ 12-05-95
Prepared By: J Gerland, M Johnson