Occasionally, our writers receive a note of appreciation about our articles in this paper; these articles for the Tri-City have been contributed by our members since 1990. Recently, Mr. Dudley wrote a note to say how much he liked a history of logging railroads. Mr. Dudley who is in his 90s, is a veteran of WWII. He later had a career in the space program, retiring as a project engineer at Huntsville. He turned his attention to the history of Alabama’s railroads and joined the local railroad club in 1968. Today, this club operates the Alabama railroad museum in Sheffield and Mr. Dudley, as the club’s historian, hosts guests at his museum in the depot. We are grateful to know stories of our history are interesting. Let us see if a review of our logging history for local readers is interesting; call this “did you know?”
The settlement of the northern part of this county is reflected in the settlement of much of the nation. Early settlers found land for their planned farms covered with huge trees. The logs from the trees provided a rough shelter, but lumber was needed for proper houses and water-powered sawmills were needed for lumber. Shortly after the Americanization of Florida in the 1830s, communities were forming here along our many streams, such as Perdido Mills at the northwest corner of the county on the Perdido River, Wardville at the headwaters of Pine Barren Creek and Pine Barren near the south end of the creek. Some communities also soon grew as ferry crossings on the Escambia River, such as the old Spanish mission community of Molino, Bluff Springs, and Pine Barren.
In the years before the War Between the States, the region around this county became well known for the abundance of virgin-pine logs. By this time large, steam-powered sawmills were beginning to grow along the shoreline of the southern end of the county, cutting lumber for export to Europe. To supply the mills, area waterways were dammed and ditched to float logs from the interior. Woodland logging communities emerged in this period such as today’s Oak Grove, Walnut Hill and Enon. The 1850s were the beginnings of the area’s railways which gave birth to depot towns such as Canoe Station, Wawbeek and Pollard. By the 1870s several depot-sawmill towns along the Escambia River had grown; new rails also gave access to build the largest and now lost sawmill town of Muscogee on the Perdido River west of Cantonment. The great logging era would continue only into the early twentieth century. Familiar names of those instrumental in the growth of the region during the logging era include Williams, Byrne, Vaughn, Hall, McDavid, McMillan and Sullivan.
As the lumbering years passed away, the population of communities declined. As things change, so does our language. Many terms that were familiar in the old sawmill communities are unknown today. Here are a few old terms, try this as a test and see how many you know: ox driver - person who leads a team of oxen; sawyer - a sawmill operator; cruiser - person who searches a forest for the best stands to cut; crib - twenty logs lashed together to make a raft; bull of the woods - a logging foreman; log driver - rider of log rafts on rivers and logs on ditches; cooper - a barrel maker; mill race – man-made water channel from mill pond to the mill’s water wheel; pike man - mill pond worker who uses long, pike poles to push logs toward the sawmill’s ramp; lath - thin, narrow strip of lumber used behind stucco walls, one of three ordinary products of a large mill - lumber, lath, and shingles.
The Alger Sullivan Historical Society has been pleased recently to host several tours of our museums. Since December three groups have visited from a disaster relief group called World Renew. The last group visited with more than fifteen people. This included five couples from Ontario, Canada, Mr. and Mrs. Boie from Illinois, and Mr. and Mrs. Postma from California. After touring the exhibits, the group said “it was very interesting.” The most recent visit a couple of weeks ago was from Mr. and Mrs. Powell and their grandchildren from Range, Alabama. After the tour, they noted in our guest book, “The kids said, awesome!” Another planned tour in March is for one of the Baptist churches in Milton. Call to plan a tour for your group; 850-256-3980.
Members of the society usually meet on Saturday mornings and stay until a little after noon. This is our Saturday coffee social. Come by, have a cup and tell us about the family. We will show you around our place. The Alger-Sullivan Historical Society would also appreciate any donation of artifacts from the area. Things, from marked bricks of the Barth yards, mill scraps of Foshee, to grandpa’s double bit ax from Bratt would be valued by the society as local history items.
