At the beginning of the twentieth century, The Alger-Sullivan Lumber Company was formed to harvest the thousands of acres of virgin pine in South Alabama and soon settled on a piece of property for a new sawmill in Florida, only a mile from the state line.
As construction of the mill and logging railway began, so did the beginnings of a town. These beginnings are documented today through collections of papers and letters preserved by our historical society, who consider this history important. Through such papers we get a glimpse of one of the most modern towns of the region at the beginning of the last century. A town with electric lights by 1902, possibly having the first planned water system with fire hydrants in this county and being connected to the first telephone exchange in Florida at Pensacola by the same year. The following are exerts of faded letters to lumber company executives from site managers as the work at their new mill and town progressed.
Nov. 27, 1901. “The Christmas holidays are near at hand and this means that not much work will be done in the latter part of December and we do not think that the mill can be gotten ready before prior to January 1, 1902.”
Jan.3, 1902. “We had a very heavy rain here last week and the dam was given a severe test, during Saturday night water rose rapidly and Mr. Glover had some trouble in raising the gate. The beams at the side have been sprung in binding the ends of the gate … He drained the pond as to make necessary changes.”
Among these fragments of information is the first and only fatality reported to upper management, but there were many other losses over the years in the dangerous business of sawmill work.
Jan. 17, 1902. “We turned over the main line of shafting for the sawmill for the first time yesterday and everything moved very nicely and there was nothing to indicate that we would experience any unusual delays and Mr. Glover is in hopes that things may be in shape so that we can saw a few logs on Wednesday the 22nd.” “We were so unfortunate to kill a Negro yesterday. He was one of the loading crew and while attempting to make a coupling, fell across the track, was badly crushed and died within a few hours after the accident.”
After several starts and stops during February, the mill was is service by March. It was quickly discovered that the steam power plant produced less energy than planned, so the company made temporary production schedule changes. It was later determined that the power problems were due to the large volume of logs cut at the mill.
March 12, 1902. “The mill is doing fairly good work, we cut 138,000 feet yesterday, 108,000 on the 10th, 130,000 on the 8th, 134,000 on the 7th, and 100,000 on the 6th. We are running the saw mill during the day and the planning mill during the night.”
To resolve the power issues, new boilers were installed by July. At that time the average cut would rise to 225,000 feet. With local managers now satisfied with the mills production, some letters turned to matters of the town.
May 22, 1902. “If you will advise me a little more fully as to the plan of handling the library and furnish me with a pamphlet if possible, we will proceed with the work promptly, in the meantime I will have a ground plan of the building drawn.”
June 14, 1902. “Last fall we found need for a school building here, we had several conferences with the Supt. of Public Instruction, and we put up a building on our property with the understanding that the school board was to rent or buy it from us, and earlier this year they informed us that they would buy it.”
Sept. 16, 1902. “In reply, I would state that the company presented the Methodist Church with a building lot and we furnished them with lumber required for building at wholesale prices, less a discount of 15% … A movement is now on foot whereby the Baptists and Presbyterians hope to build a church jointly. If they decide to do so, we will necessarily give them a lot and sell them lumber under the same conditions.”
Nov. 14, 1902. “Mrs. T. J. Millen came to me this morning with reference to a lot on which to build a church which the Baptists and Presbyterians propose putting up jointly. She said to me that you had told her that the company would donate a 50 foot lot on the same street store and offices are on …”
Success of the sawmill would promote the growth of the town. Other papers would report that within a couple of years the mill would build the first hospital between Pensacola and Montgomery, and soon after the only county school outside of Pensacola for black students. By the early 1920s the mill had built, or helped construct more than fifty buildings for this unique town.
The Alger-Sullivan Historical Society strives to serve our community by preserving and displaying remnants of our history and we need your help to continue. Here is a very easy way to help our society if someone you know shops on Amazon. Instead of using the Amazon site, access smile.amazon.com and use your regular login. Then click on “select your charity” or “change your charity” and type in Alger-Sullivan Historical Society and verify. Each time you shop Amazon afterwards through smile.amazon.com, our society will receive 1 cent for every two dollars spent. Encourage your friends to put this info on Facebook or “whatever”. A few cents at a time can make a difference if enough folks join.
