Greenbrier County, West Virginia - 160th Anniversary Booklet - Part 21 *********************************************************************** USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. *********************************************************************** Historical Booklet - Greenbrier County 160th Anniversary - 1778-1938 Published 1938 Transcribed by Lori Samples EARLY TIMBERING IN THE GREENBRIER VALLEY In the trackless forests of the region west of the Alleghenies were stands of virgin hard and soft woods that from the 1880's to the present day have given rise to timbering and lumber manufacturing interests which have kept the state in the foremost rank of lumber producing areas. West Virginia lies in the midst of the greatest hardwood producing section in the eastern United States. More than three-fourths of its timber is hardwood, although at higher elevations large bodies of softwoods are found. The earliest logging and timbering development on a large scale came to the Greenbrier Valley in 1882, when the St. Lawrence Boom and Manufacturing Company opened the largest softwood manufacturing plant in the United States. It operated until 1908. During those days, the Greenbrier River was harnassed with dams, cribs, booms, pockets and equipment at Ronceverte to receive and store the endless millions of logs cut from the mountains of upper Greenbrier and Pocahontas sections and floated down to feed the ravenous and unending whirling buzzing saws. They had a capacity of 110,000 board feet per day. The beginning of the logging and timbering on the Greenbrier River came with the arrival in Ronceverte of Col. Ceil C. Clay, of New York State. He was a close friend of the late Theodore Roosevelt. Col. Clay brought the first log drive from Pocahontas County. Among the tallest, finest trees in this group were the timbers used in the construction of the "Big Mill" at Ronceverte. Many of the old rivermen were famous for their feats of strength and daring. In the days when they navigated the Greenbrier, there were such hazards to arks, rafts, and drives as the Bird Mill Dam, near Rorer; Marlin Ford at Marlinton; Break Neck at Beard; Copper Head Rocks and Davy's Run at Droop Mountain; Sliding Bend; Anthony's Rocks; the island at the mouth of Beaver Creek; the Buckley Rocks avoce the mouth of Swago; and many others. Bridges at the time were at Marlinton, Falling Spring, Anthony, and Caldwell, and occasionally a pier of one or more of these structures would be rammed. John Buckley, one of the most famous rivermen of the Greenbrier, aged yet active, still lives at his home near Buckeye, Pocahontas County. Other famous rivermen were Charley Callison, John Callison, George W. McCollom, John Rorke, Capt. John Peters and Capt. Lakin. During twenty years of timbering and logging in the Greenbrier Valley, it is estimated that 800,000,000 feet of lumber were produced by the "Big Mill" at Ronceverte. The two enormous yards adjacent to this maintained mill once held 20,000,000 feet of lumber, and millions upon millions of shingles, lath, and pickets. In September, 1908, the last log in the mill pond was cut, the "Big Mill" shut down, and the softwood lumber business passed into the realm of memory. Today the river booms are gone, the cribs are mere piles of rock, the mill has been pulled down and carted away, the dams have been torn out, and the Old Greenbrier, once the maddening course of the riverman's tempestous life, passes untroubled on its way to the sea. And where once stood the old mill, with a whistle that shook the earth at four-thirty each morning there is now a quiet corn field and a beautiful park and playground. The immense plant of the Meadow River Lumber Company, at Rainelle, in western Greenbrier, is the largest hardwood lumber manufacturing plant in the world. It is a worthy member of a great industry, successor to the pioneer project of the Greenbrier Valley. Its workmen are still cutting the virgin hardwood from the fastnesses of mountains that have guarded this county for centuries, and through its operations Greenbrier County trees are turned into buildings for mankind all over the nation. NEXT: THE PIONEER IN QUEST OF POWER.