The tall timber of the virgin forest must
have been overwhelming to the earliest settlers of the present-day
Poplar Bluff area. In fact, trees were one of the homesteaders' biggest
enemies as they tried to clear places to grow enough food for their
livestock and large families.
The fertile overflow lands of the Black and St. Francis rivers grew
the biggest trees, nourished by centuries of rich nutrients deposited
during annual flooding. Enormous bald-cypress and water tupelo thrived
in the natural swamps that covered much of the lowlands. Several species
of oaks, ash and other hardwoods grew to massive proportions on slightly
higher elevations in the bottoms.
In the hills of the northwestern third of Butler County stood vast
stands of pine and many other valuable upland trees. It was only in
the foothills near the Little Black River that more open or savanna-like
conditions apparently existed. Government geologist G.W. Featherstonhaugh,
who toured the region in 1834, described the Little Black area as
"fine open country, very extensive, and the trees were so far
asunder from each other that we could imagine ourselves traveling
through some park."
Other than providing plenty of wood for homes, fuel and furnishings,
the forests were a hardship in the early years. After picking a home
site, usually near a water source, the typical settler selected a
likely spot for a future crop field and set about girdling the standing
trees with an ax. After the leaves fell, the sun reached the corn,
wheat and vegetables planted in the "field." That way, at
least a meager crop could be harvested that first season. Actual clearing
of the ground often took years.
It was not until the arrival of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain &
Southern Railroad lines form the north and east in 1872 that the commercial
harvest of timber became profitable. (And profitable it was. By 1907,
Poplar Bluff had 57 manufacturing plants -- most wood-related -- employing
nearly 1,400 men with an annual payroll of almost $600,000. Of the
$2.1 million in commodities shipped for Butler County that year, $1.9
million was "forest products.")
Hugo Boeving (left) at his Fagus sawmill in 1911
(photo courtesy Leo Boeving).
Logging and related industries boomed in the 1880s and '90s. Poplar
Bluff became a railroad and timber center, a combination that earned
the city a reputation as a tough town.
Work in the logging woods and mils was a rough lot. Whether hanging
on the end of a crosscut saw all day, trimming limbs with an ax or
hand-dewing railroad ties, men who worked in the timber and mills
earned their keep, often not even a dollar a day. Most of the work
in the mills was hand labor. It was hot or cold, depending on the
season, dusty and dangerous. Newspapers of the day were filled with
accounts of men killed and maimed on the job,
Hearne Timber Co. at the south edge of Poplar Bluff
about 1920
(photo courtesy Pauline Gray Hearne).
Once a tree was felled, the log was cut into manageable sections
to be taken to the mill. Multiple pairs of powerful oxen skidded the
massive logs out of the swamps. The leading end of the log was chained
atop a "lizard" -- a crude cradle built from a forked tree
-- or a mud boat - -a sturdy sled that glided over the muck -- and
the oxen did their work.
Several of the major companies built their own rail lines to bring
the logs form the woods to the mills Steamboats hauled logs, lumber
and merchandise up and down the Black and St. Francis rivers. And,
"rafts" of both logs and finished ties were floated down
the rivers to mills and rail points.
The Brooklyn Cooperage Company on Poplar Bluff's East Side, operated
from about 1900 to 1927. Working 1,200 men at a time, the firm was
the largest producer of barrel staves in America. An earlier Poplar
Bluff company, the H.D. Williams Cooperage Co., was said to be the
world's largest stave mill in its day. Brooklyn Cooperage built its
own standard gauge rail line -- the Butler County Railroad -- from
Poplar Bluff to several Arkansas communities. Used initially to haul
timber, the line eventually carried passengers and general freight.
Brooklyn Cooperage closed in 1927, moving to South Carolina and selling
the rail line to the Frisco Railroad.
Virtually every imaginable type of wood product was produced in Poplar
Bluff, including octagonal "sucker rods" for the oil industry,
fancy veneers, tool handles, spokes for Model T Fords, flooring, lath,
shingles and specialty lumber of all kinds.
But the virgin forest had vanished by the end of the 1920s and Poplar
Bluff's tall timber days were gone, probably forever.
Butler County Railroad log train heads for Brooklyn
Cooperage Co. mill in Poplar Bluff. (photo courtesy Moark Regional
Railroad Museum).
---
General Research Sources
