Life in Alabama, southern culture, southern writing

Cut Out and Get Out

by rayclifton3 Comments on Cut Out and Get Out

This was the term for the business model applied by sawmill owners in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was not a new concept. The philosophy was simple: move into a forest, cut all the trees that could be sawn into lumber, then pack up and leave for a new area when finished. There were no provisions or even thoughts of reforestation. The forests of New England and the Lake States were already diminished, and the South and West were next in line to supply the lumber for the industrial revolution.

As mentioned in the previous post, most of the early “lumber barons” were Northerners with capital to buy the land. Their migration to the South followed the bloodiest war the United States has ever fought, and regional animosity remained on both sides. Most Northerners referred to Southerners as “Slavers.” The Southerners in turn hated the “Carpetbaggers” who they considered political and economic profiteers.

Consider Frederick Weyerhaeuser, the patriarch of a family whose name still resides over a corporation that is the largest timberland owner in the US today. He initially resisted investment in the South because some of his family would be required by necessity to live there, an idea he considered “repugnant.” The views out the window on a train ride from Memphis to Vicksburg with some other lumbermen changed his outlook. At he end of the trip he said, “I think I would better take back my ideas of this southern lumber and the people.”

The process of the lumber barons was straightforward. The sawmill machinery was manufactured in the North and shipped by railroad to the chosen location. Logging workers were hired and housed in tent camps. As the operation gained momentum, small “mill towns” were constructed to house the workers and their families. The timber was cut in every direction. Some mills built narrow gauge railroad spur lines to extend the range of the clearcut. Once the distance from trees to mill became too far to be profitable, the mill was shut down and moved to another location where the process would begin again.

The lifecycle of a mill ranged from 20 to 30 years. The loggers used axes and crosscut saws to cut the trees which were then moved to staging areas by horses, mules, and oxen. It was dangerous work, but it did provide employment and housing for men beyond farmwork and helped expand Alabama’s economy from agriculture to industry.

Not every Northerner came to exploit the resource and leave. John Kaul, the son of a Pennsylvania lumberman, came South in 1888 looking for an investment. He bought a small sawmill in Hollins, Alabama, and updated it with new machinery. The company employed over 800 men, with 250 in the woods. Historical records indicate that Hollins became a thriving small town for its day. The mill eventually burned in 1908, was rebuilt, then shut down in 1911. At that time, it was one of the largest lumber producers in Alabama. It has been estimated that somewhere between 80 and 100 thousand acres were cut in 20 years of operation. The Kaul family kept the land they acquired until a few years ago. For perspective, the population of Hollins is about 600 today. All that remains of the town is a small post office and a couple of churches. I mention this example because my family has lived in and around Hollins for five generations. The family cemetery is near the old mill site.

The result of this era was a devastated landscape. Author Archer Mayor described it this way: “When the loggers left a site for the last time, it resembled a battlefield, torn up and blasted. People who had cut down trees all their lives acknowledged the desolation, even convinced as they were that there were too many trees in the first place. Despite the fact that it would all grow back eventually, those who cared knew that what was gone would never return.”

The forest did return, though different. Alabama has the right soils and climate to grow trees quickly.

In an earlier piece I wrote that there was little “virgin” or “old growth” forests in Alabama, so it is difficult to pick a starting point for the so-called “original” forest. The same could be said for the timber the lumber industry cut in the 1800s. In the U.S. census of 1890, Dr. Charles Mohr of Mobile made the following observation: “Most people have thought that the trees that made lumber for the present generation were growing at the time of the discovery of America by Columbus, but that is not so. It is rare that a virgin tree is found that is older than 200 years.” That meant that the trees in Bartram’s “original forest” were seedlings in the early colonial days. The forests of Alabama have been undergoing change for centuries. Before logging there were hurricanes, wildfires, tornados, insects, diseases, and various other plagues. Alabama’s forest are resilient with stands of trees not as old as you would think. It would be around World War II that the next era would begin. The forest would change again because industry changed. Lumber would still be important, but paper became king.

creative nonfiction, rural life, southern culture, southern writing

How to Get Rich in the South

by rayclifton5 Comments on How to Get Rich in the South

If we look at the history of change in Alabama’s forest, it is useful to think in terms of “eras.” Each era lasted about 80 years. I have covered two of these in previous posts: “the original forest” as described by naturalist William Bartram, and the “settlement era” in which European settlers purchased land and created homestead farms. The next period, which I call the “sawmill era” (1865-1940), had the largest influence on the structure and composition of the forests across the South. The current Alabama forest still reflects what occurred in that era.

Alabama’s landscape at the beginning of the Civil War (1861-1865) was still largely an unbroken patchwork of farms and forest. There were some small sawmills (often called “peckerwood mills”) usually located along creeks and rivers, but they were incapable of processing significant volumes of lumber. Plus, the lack of a transportation infrastructure relegated timber and forest products primarily to local use. Consequently, nothing resembling a large-scale timber industry in the South existed before the Civil War.

At the time, Alabama was an agrarian society consisting of hundreds of small farms and large-acreage cotton plantations. There was some manufacturing across the state, but nothing on the scale of what existed in the North. While we may think the farmers were “dirt poor,” the South had a higher per capita income, even including the slave population, than the industrialized states of the Union. The War changed that as plantation owners and subsistence farmers (supplying most of the soldiers) went from wealth to poverty overnight. Contrast this to the northern states where a well-developed forest products industry supplied lumber, railroad crossties, charcoal, and tannin. Large scale “lumbering” had already occurred over the previous eight decades, particularly in the Lake States. Vast areas of forestland already showed signs of depletion. The combination of an impoverished South, rich in forest, and the industrialized North, rich in capital, was a perfect match.

In his book “How to Get Rich in the South,” A.J. Harrison wrote “The supply of timber in the South is inexhaustible . . . and is being bought in large tracts by lumbermen.”

Inexhaustible.

Wealthy northerner capitalists saw opportunity in Alabama’s stately longleaf pine trees. The northern states needed timber to supply an industrial revolution, and wealthy northern capitalists had a vision and the means to exploit it.

And so, it was. Thousands of acres were bought by “timber barons” from the North. Some were simply speculators, while others would build sawmills mills along the expanded railroad corridors. Homesteaders, now desperate for cash in an economy in ruins, had two options: sell the land and go West, or stay put and sell their trees for whatever they could get.

They did both. Those who sold their land often did so at less than one dollar per acre. Those who chose to stay and keep their farms sold their trees for much less. One example was in the heart of Alabama’s extensive longleaf forest, where records reveal that one timber speculator bought 40-acre parcels of “virgin” longleaf timber for “three sacks of corn, three sides of bacon, ten pounds of tobacco, and 40 pounds of coffee.” If he considered the timber “exceptional” he offered “an extra sack of corn and an additional ten pounds of coffee.”

Once the land and timber was purchased, sawmills were constructed along the railroad corridors. In the next installment, I’ll discuss the particulars and the result: deforestation, the likes of which will never be equaled.

Life in Alabama, nonfiction, rural life, southern culture, southern writing

Woods Someone Owned

by rayclifton6 Comments on Woods Someone Owned

It took a little less than 80 years to transition from Bartram’s idyllic “original” forest, an unbroken landscape of “stately pines” and “lush bottomlands,” to a countryside that bore the marks of European colonial settlement. This change stemmed from a very American idea: that ordinary people could purchase land for themselves, work it with their own two hands, and build enough personal wealth to control their own destinies.

But before the land could be sold, it had to be controlled. Westward expansion into the 14 million acre “Mississippi Territory” followed the defeat of the British and the Creek Indian Nation in 1814. By 1819 Alabama had enough settlers to enter the Union as a state. By 1830 the native tribes were overcome and relocated to “Indian Territory” in present-day Oklahoma.

Back in Alabama, the territorial lands were surveyed into a rectangular grid established by the Government Land Survey System. This allowed land to be broken into parcels or lots which were offered by grant or sale to homesteaders at Government Land Offices.

Under private ownership, the towering longleaf pines and the lush hardwood river bottoms were more often seen as an obstacle than a blessing. Before a farm could be established, trees had to be cut and removed to prepare for homes and crops, and that was no easy task.

A typical homesteader cleared enough trees to build a small cabin and a few outbuildings, as well as clearing areas to grow crops. This was difficult, backbreaking labor. Trees were felled with axes and crosscut saws–called “misery whips” by settlers–and dragged to building sites by oxen, horses, or mules. The clearing and building process was gradual and often took place over several years. Once cleared, settlers planted corn, wheat, and vegetables and sometimes established fruit orchards. Rail fences were made from longleaf pine (or chestnut in the north) to keep free-range livestock out of the crops. The settlers initially relied on wild game as their meat source but soon hogs became the primary source of meat since pork could be preserved by smoking or salting. Once a few families had settled in an area, small communities developed.

The notion that Alabama was dominated by big cotton plantations and slave labor is false. The plantations were mostly prevalent in Alabama’s Black Belt Prairie (where there were few trees) and along major rivers. However, even small homestead farms eventually began producing some cotton by the 1820s. Cotton was a cash crop, and cash was scarce for subsistence farmers. Even though more land was cleared for cotton, the overall effect on the “original forest” was marginal.

Up until the Civil War, few areas of Alabama had anything resembling a large-scale forest products industry. Small sawmills were scattered across the state, usually along major creeks or rivers, but these did not become transformative until after the War. The same small scale held true for other commercial enterprises such as charcoal, turpentine, and crossties for the burgeoning railroad business.

After the Civil War, however, a new era would begin. The forest of Alabama was about to be transformed into a landscape that Bartram could not have imagined.

creative nonfiction, Life in Alabama, nonfiction, southern writing

Woods No One Owned

by rayclifton12 Comments on Woods No One Owned

“At one time in the world there were woods that no one owned,” wrote Cormac McCarthy in Child of God.

If you want to tell a story, start at the beginning. But there is a problem if your tale is about a forest. When exactly was the beginning?

I once attended a lecture on Alabama’s National Forests at which a government forester claimed that the U.S. Forest Service was enacting a management plan to restore public lands to their “original condition.” I raised my hand and asked when the forest was “original.” After a great deal of stuttering and stammering he admitted that what he really meant was before any logging.

That’s a beginning with which we can work. What did Alabama’s forest look like before anyone owned it – before logging?

My best guess is 1775, the year that naturalist William Bartram documented his travel through central and southern parts of the state. Bartram was a true “Renaissance man,” an explorer, botanist, artist, and writer, and his descriptions and drawings of plants and animals are the definitive narrative of the southern landscape before European settlement.

What Bartram described is something vastly different from what exists today.

In what we now call the “Coastal Plain” he found longleaf pine savannas, vast areas occupied by “the stateliest pine trees that can be imagined.” This forest was open and prairie-like, with large, widely spaced trees “standing like columns or pillars,” and a ground cover of grasses, wildflowers, and shrubs. The openness of this forest allowed him to travel through on horseback. He accurately surmised that the longleaf ecosystem was maintained by frequent fires, which occurred both naturally and through intentional actions of the natives.

A reasonable estimate of the longleaf forest in Bartram’s time is 30 million acres. Today there are about three million, and much of that consists of young longleaf plantations. There is a lot of interest in restoring the ecosystem, and public and private agencies offer grants and other funding to encourage landowners to plant longleaf.

Along rivers and creeks, he found something entirely different. Great stands of massive hardwood trees including oak, ash, elm, baldcypress, sweetgum, and southern magnolia. Thick vines grew up into the canopy, and the groundcover consisted of ferns and lush vegetation. He described this forest as “cool, shady, and luxuriant.”

The bottomland forest in Bartram’s time is estimated to have covered six million acres. Today there is about 2.7 million, with most of that having been cut at least once.

Just south of what is now Montgomery, Bartram described something foresters find puzzling – a nine-mile-long stretch of flowering dogwood trees so dense that it was a monoculture, punctuated occasionally by a southern magnolia. The curious thing about that is that dogwood today is found as individual trees scattered across the uplands. What he described does not exist today.

While Bartram did not travel through the hills and valleys of North Alabama, we can surmise what he might have seen from the writings from settlers in the early 1800s. Oak, hickory, American chestnut, hemlock, and various pine species covered this area. Most has since been cut and regenerated several times, and a substantial portion is now in pine plantations. American chestnut, which may have constituted 30% of this upland forest is extinct, killed by a blight over a couple of decades in the early 20th century.

The bottom line: the forests we have today are quite different than the “original.” The terms “virgin forest,” “virgin timber,” or “old-growth timber” simply do not apply in Alabama. Every forested acre that can be logged has been — several times. A tree over 130 years old is rare, and a group of trees that age standing together on an acreage large enough to be considered a forest is non-existent. There are a few exceptions, of course, but they are occupying land that is extremely hard to access – which is why they are still standing. These “patches” of forest exist in areas so steep, narrow, swampy, or rocky that no enterprising timber man ever figured out how to get in to cut them. We have lots of trees, but they are not as old as you might think. Next time I will tell you a little bit about how we got from Bartram’s “original” forest to that we have today.

Photos generated by AI

creative nonfiction, Life in Alabama, rural life, southern culture, southern writing

The State of Forests

by rayclifton8 Comments on The State of Forests

Alabama has trees—so many that most of us who live here hardly notice them.

Auburn University recently hosted a World Cup Soccer “friendly” match between Argentina and Iceland that drew 88,000 fans. Subsequent social media posts from international visitors both amused and honored us. Visiting fans expected the arrogance of American Exceptionalism and gun-slinging violent crime—they said so themselves in numerous on-the-ground interviews. Instead, they found Alabama bursting with friendly, helpful people. They were overwhelmed and delighted with some of the trappings of Southern culture like Buc-ee’s, Waffle House, Ranch Dressing, and … trees.

“Oh, the trees. Everywhere there are trees!”

And that is true. Alabama is about 70% forested. That’s about 23 million acres of trees.

I don’t know about you, but a million of anything is hard for me to visualize. When it comes to land, I can visualize an acre as roughly the size of a football field (real football, not soccer). Twenty-three million football fields is a lot of ground.

The politics of the “green” movement will try to convince you that deforestation is a threat to the planet. It may well be a threat in some areas of the world, but not in Alabama. Would you believe the acreage of forestland here is the same as it was in the early 1900’s? That is astonishing considering the increases in urbanization and industry over these 126 years. Alabama had a population of 1.8 million in 1900, and now stands at 5.2 million, a substantial portion of which resides in a half-dozen cities.

To be fair, the acreage has shifted around. While cities have grown, agriculture continues to decline. The year 1900 was the peak of 100 years of cotton farming in the state. “I wish I was in the land of cotton” used to be a real thing: six million acres of it were planted anywhere it could be planted (and some places it shouldn’t have). There are around 50,000 acres of cotton land today, and “old times here are quite forgotten.”

There’s a reason that cotton is gone. Many have learned just enough history to think it was due to the boll weevil, an insect which is commemorated by a statue in Enterprise (in case you ever want to make a pilgrimage). But the truth of cotton’s decline is much more complex. There were environmental, technological, labor, and political causes, but the biggest factor was that the global market for cotton changed. On the bright side, what was bad for cotton was good for trees, which grow well on lots of soils, even those worn out by continuous cotton cultivation.

I feel certain that if you could travel back to 1900 and tell an old-timer that there would be very few cotton fields in 100 years, he would have laughed you off his porch, because cotton was about all you could see in every direction.

That is the same thing someone would tell you today about Alabama’s abundant forest.

Unless he is paying attention.