Sunday, January 16, 2011

The Raping Of Phillips County

Drive in almost any direction out of Helena and you can see the results of the "rape" of old growth hardwoods that started not too many years after the end of the Civil War.

About the only places left untouched after decades of clear cutting by farmers and carpet-bagger timber barons is that part of the national forest north of Helena and the bottom-lands of the White River.  
CHICAGO MILL OFFICE  ITAWAMBA COUNTY, MS.

No one gave a tinker's darn about forest conservation, water runoff or soil erosion at that time. The logging is called a "rape" because the "potential" exists, given the right long-term weather conditions, for a "dust bowl" situation with nothing to hold the topsoil in place.

The one concern back during the logging heyday was making money as fast as was possible and nothing else mattered.  Many of the huge homes in Helena owe their existence to timber profits. 

A trip south out of Helena down Arkansas 20 and then on 85 the results of clear-cutting can be readily seen. Except for scrub trees outlining sloughs, or perhaps a combine or tractor, the view is unobstructed all the way to the horizon.  The only place to really see old-growth hardwoods are those actually in the water of Old Town Lake.

From the late 1800s to the middle of the 1900s the land was cleared with rapid abandon. Land around Lambrook, a wide spot on Arkansas 20 west of Elaine, for instance, was cleared in rapid succession by one of those northern immigrants intent on making it big.  The man even laid a railroad spur right up to the logging operation.

The clear-cutting, however, was not just something unique to Phillips County.  It was happening all over the central Mississippi Delta in Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana. 

One of the biggest clear-cutters in Phillips County and throughout the Delta was Chicago Mill & Lumber Company of Chicago.  There are estimates that nearly 17 million acres of forestland were lost in the lower Mississippi River flood plain primarily due to timber harvesting by companies such as Chicago Mill and from the conversion of forests to farmland.  Chicago Mill opened a veneer processing plant in Helena and had another plant near Jonesboro.  Like most timber companies of the time, they bought up vast tracts of land, harvesting the timber and transporting it to company-owned mills before manufacturing the lumber and shipping it out to lumber yards, either by barge or rail. Located in a port town, the Greenville location played an important role in transporting timber and lumber up and down the Mississippi River.

CHICAGO MILL ENGINE USED IN LOUISIANA
The Chicago company even had numerous shortline railroads in the Delta to speed its products to market

Chicago Mill, owned by German immigrant Hermann Paepcke, opened the in 1892 and made corrugated boxes for such clients as Sears Roebuck & Co. It is quite possible at the time a Phillips County resident receiving a Sears boxed item could be holding a box made from Phillips County trees.  

The one advantage for Phillips County sharecropping residents was that during the downtime for crops they could go work for the timber companies.  Chicago Mill was not the only timber company operating in the county, but it was the largest.

Paepcke struck it rich with his timber business and moved to the silk stocking, high rent district along Chicago's Lakeshore Drive.  The company still exists in Mississippi, but it is a mere skeleton of its former self. 

There was never any attempt, then or now, by anyone for reforest any of the hardwoods that were native to Phillips County.


Logging operations are still active in Phillips County and the rest of Arkansas. There are nearly 500 such companies involved in the logging industry employing nearly 4,000 people and with annual sales of more than $288 million. There are five such companies in Phillips County:  Ameritech of Arkansas, West Helena; Delta Lumber, Lexa; Faust Big Cypress, Marvell; McKnight Plywood, West Helena; and Smith Lumber & Tie, Barton.

1 comment:

  1. Very informative! What were some of the trees that were native to Phillips County?

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