03-12AP East Texas Yellow Pine, Art PrintEarly-day loggers are shown at work felling a giant Yellow Pine tree on lands owned by the Thompson Lumber Company in the late 1800s or early 1900s. The company owned several sawmills, mainly in East Texas, processing Shortleaf, Longleaf and Loblolly Pine.The Thompson family began its logging activities near Kilgore in East Texas, where they started their lumbering empire. Several of these sawmills are now only memories and their surrounding communities are ghost towns. These small sawmills operated between 1852 and 1880. Railroads began to criss-cross East Texas at the time, when stands of virgin pine timber were common sights. Thompson Lumber Company expanded their production by building new, larger mills and enlarging existing sawmills. The company shut down operations permanently in the early 1900s. (Thanks to Carol Riggs, Director, Texas Forestry Museum, and Richard F. Baldwin, Managing Partner, Oak Creek Investments, for details in rendering this story and oil painting.) |
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