Early Sawmills, Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana Submitted to the USGenWeb Archives by Sandra McLellan, Jan. 2005 Special thanks to Jim Perrin for donating it to the archives. ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ LOCAL MILLS - PROVIDED ESSENTIAL LUMBER (The following historical sketch of the sawmills in Ponchatoula during the early history of the area, was submitted by Jim Perrin, local school principal and local historian) BY JIM PERRIN The construction of the New Orleans, Jackson and Great Northern railroad line in 1852 in the Ponchatoula area meant that large amounts of lumber of vaired dimensions would be needed. Timbers were need for cross ties, bridges, trestles (the entire route through the swamp was composed of treslework), construction of depots, water tanks, and other purposes. As much as possible local lumber sources were used to supply the needed materials. The vast forests of this area with their virgin pine and cypress timber offered a ready supply for the railroad company. The chief surveyor for the New Orleans, Jackson and Great Northern Railroad Company's southern division was James Clark. Knowing the planned location of the first railroad depot north of the swamps, Clark purchased the section of vacant land around the proposed site and laid out a new town. The new development centered at the railroad depot was named Ponchatoula. Since Clarks' new town was at first much more of a pine forest than a town, and since lumber was needed for railroad, as well as residential and commerical construction, he soon began to operate Ponchatoula's first sawmill. The date of the sawmill's construction in not known, but probably was in operation around 1854 when town lots began to be sold and a economic activity increased that fall with the opening of the railroad line as far north as Osyka, Miss. Clarks' mill was certainly in Operation by 1856, when Zelotas Tucker Jr. is recorded as hiring out a family slave named Albert to work for wages at the Clark Company sawmill in Ponchatoula. When Clark died about a dozen years later, his sawmill property included two steam saw mill boilers, a saw mill engine and a lot of old carry log and horse cart iron used to transport lumber. There is also a reference to Loveland's sawmill during the same period of time, but this is thought to be the same sawmill, since Mrs. Loveland operated Clark's property for some time whle he was out of the country residing in Cuba. Clark's sawmill may have survived the Civil War, as the boilers, engine and other items were described and sold in 1869 along with other succession property. Although no detailed records of Clarks' mill have yet been found, if the mill equipment was of commercial value in 1869, it probably had been used a short time period to that date. In November, 1857, Hiram Mix (1807-1875) purchased Lots 9 & 10 in Square 20 facing the railroad tract. In August, 1861, he purchased the rest of that block which face the railroad, and in February, 1862, he bought an additinal 160 acres of forested land which provided a ready source of timber for his sawmill. In November, 1866, Mix was taxed by the federal government as being the owner of a sawmill in Ponchatoula, which indicates his mill was in operation at that time. When Mix died in 1875, the lots on which his sawmill had been located were valued far in excesss of what vacant town lots were then selling for, suggesting that the mill or mill buildings were still there. The next mill of record in Ponchatoula was in 1884, although the lumber needs of the town may have been supplied by mills in the rural area, or a town mill that has not been reported. In May 1884, George Hoffman Biegel (1852-1924), entered into a an equal partnership with Thomas Casswell to operate a general sawmill business and manufacture and sell lumber. In July of that year, Biegel purchased Lots 9-16 in Square 26 in Ponchatoula from Ezra Foster and Jane M. Hoyt of Rochester, NY. The Hoyts had purchased a large portion of the town of Ponchatoula during the succession sale of James Clark's estate in March, 1869. The lots purchased by Biegel comprised the west half of Square 26 facing the railroad tracks. The site is now the location of a large feed grinding mill operated by the Ponchatoula Feed Store. Biegel and Casswell had a dispute concerning the operations of the mill and Biegell went to the parish court to prevent Casswell from dismatling the mill machinery and moving it to another town. The court issued a restraining order agianst Casswell and ordered an inventory to be made of the mill property. The inventory, conducted by C.C Tucker and M. E. Vinyard, listed the mill building, locamotive boiler, a steam engine with related fixtures, a cut off saw, the main saw mill, carriage, tracking, eding machine, etc. There was also 25,000 board feet of lumber at the mill, whiich was valued at $4 per thousand board feet. The eight lots, which comprised the mill property, were valued at $100. Although not indicated in the court records, the partnership between Biegel and Casswell is believed to have been disolved and the mill operated there after solely by Biegel. Biegel employed a number of men, including Saul Austin, Barney Arnold, Calvin Fendlason, Jake Richardson, Mr. Holden (probably William H. Holden), and "old man Scott," to bring logs from area forests by ox teams to his mill Biegel, who had served on the town council and most recently as the tax collector of Ponchatoula, sold his mill property and equipment in February, 1887, to George W. Ragsdale for $3,500. EARLY LUMBER MILL HAD A SUCCESSION OF OWNNER (The following historical sketch of the sawmills in Ponchatoula during the early history of the area, was submitted by Jim Perrin, local school principal and local historian) BY JIM PERRIN George Ragsdale was 57 years old in 1887 at the time he purchased the Biegel-Casswell lumber mill north of the 100 block of East Hickory Street. Ragsdale was a native of Alabama, and had recently moved south from Grenada, Miss., where he had been working as a furniture manufacturer. During the years following 1887, Ragsdale expanded the mill operations and added adjacent land to the mill site, including Lots 1 and 2 in Square 26, which face North Fifth Street where the north parking lot of the present post office building is located, and Lots 5-8 in Square 20, which face North Fifth Street across from the Ponchatoula Community Center. In a January, 1897, conveyance record, the Radsdale Mill is described as having a steam circular saw, 14 iron wheeled lumber cars, various tools, and a blacksmith shop. George Ragsdale was said to have been a resident of Copiah County, Miss., in this 1897 deed. The next year, George Ragsdale sold the mill and the14 town lots in Squares 20 and 26 to his son, William Ragsdale. The mill in 1898 consisted of a large steam engine, two boilers, a circular saw, head blocks, a gang edge, a cut-off saw, a shingle mill, lumber trucks, blacksmith and carpenter tools, and the mill buildings. The Radsdale family continued to operate the sawmill until May, 1903, when George W. Ragsdale's widow, Maria Octavia Ragsdale, and her children sold the mill equipment and property to Charles S. Thompson. Thompson sold half of his interest in the mill property in November, 1903, to James M. Ackley. Ackley was from Brewton, Ala., but was living in New Orleans in November, 1903. Thompson and Ackley named their mill the Ponchatoula Lumber Co. Thompson and Ackley's Ponchatoula Lumber Co. was not a success, for the mill property was sold at a sheriff's sale in February, 1905, to the Merchants' and Farmers' bank of Ponchatoula for $3,800. The bank quickly sold the lumber mill to Rudolf Flasdisk, an immigrant from Bremen, Germany. Flasdick, who lived in Ponchatoula for a number of years before moving his family to Madisonville, took in a partner to help operate the mill. The partner was Bryan Black of New Orleans, and the new firm was thereafter called the Flasdick-Black Land and Lumber Co. The Flasdick-Black mill operated for a number of years and was the first mill on this site to be well photographed and documented. The layout of the mill is shown on a 1908 Sanborn Fire Ins. map of Ponchatoula. The map shows the log dump where new logs were dumped from a railroad spur line to be kept wet until being hauled up a ramp to the main sawmill. Power for the mill was supplied by two large steam boilers. The map also shows the planing mill where two planes smoothed the lumber, a dry kiln where steam vents dried the moisture in the lumber, and various lumber sheds. Also shown was a blacksmith shop, an electrical generating plant supplying power to the mill and also to the town, a cistern holding 15,000 gallons of water, and the mill office facing East Hickory Street. The mill also had two flow wells with a pumping system that delivered up to 350 gallons of water per minute. During the years after 1903, the Flasdick-Black Co. expanded the mill property to include lots 5-8 and 9-13, which compose the south half of Square 20, and lots 9-16 in Square 19 where the present public library and community center are located. Not all of these lots were actively involved in the mill operations, but were owned by the Flasdick-Black Co. Sometime prior to 1912, the Flasdick-Black Land and Lumber Co. became the Jay Black Co. of New Orleans. In October, 1912, the Jay Black Land Co. represented by Bryan Black of New Orleans, ceded 27 lots, the sawmill with all its machinery and buildings, and some additional acreage outside of Ponchatoula to the Merchants' and Farmers' Bank to cover the balance of a note to the bank of $7,144. The bank, which once again found itself in possession of the sawmill, sold the mill property to Andrew J. Pusey of Ponchatoula. It is unclear if the mill continued in operation under Mr. Pusey as the 1913 Pusey purchase did not include the sawmill machinery and buildings. Mr. Pusey seems to have acquired the mill machinery at a later date, for in June, 1918, he sold the mill property, excluding the lots in Square 19, but including the sawmill machinery to Edward W. Vinyard. Mr. Vinyard operated the sawmill for many years, adding a box factory in 1921 and housing in Square 20 for some of his mill workers. Most of the buildings of the Vinyard mill were located in the southern half of Square 20 in Beech Street, which was closed between North Fifth Street and Northeast Railroad Avenue, with the exception of two lumber sheds located in the northeast corner of Square 26, being behind and just north of the present post office. If one could have stood where the parking lot of the community center is now located and looked west in 1925, the view would be of the two and one-half story box factory turning out wooden pints and crates for Ponchatoula's booming strawberry industry. Behind the box factory was the two story sawmill building with its towering steam chimneys, and to the right facing Fifth Street were eight simple houses for mill workers. The mill expanded over the years and by 1936 employed almost 100 workers. A sawmill dollar was always hard earned, whether at the Ragsdale, Flasdick, or Vinyard mill, where the work as hard, hot, and sometimes dangerous. The historic sawmills of downtown Ponchatoula have long been closed, and the roar of circular and band saws replaced by the occasional grinding of grain at the Feed Store's mill, the chatter of teenagers playing basketball outside the community center, and the passing sounds of trucks hauling tons of chocolate candy from Elmer's plant. One can only wonder what a sweaty, sawdust covered mill worker missing part of his left index finger from a mill accident would have thought of today's view of the mill location. Being part of a tough breed, he probably would just smile, knowing he had done his part to help build our Ponchatoula.