•Part 2
It's no wonder that Dr. T. C. W. Magee, the son of Joe N. Magee (1876-1925) and wife Lula Jenkins Magee (1879-1964), became an ardent tree farmer and vast land owner in Washington Parish. It was in his genes. After his tenure as Sheriff of Washington Parish, Joe Magee worked as an overseer of timberland for Great Southern Lumber Company for twelve years.
And as it was in many local households, like father, like son. Son T. C. W. followed in his father's footsteps at Great Southern working there during the summer in the 1920s before he matriculated at Baylor University.
Still a young man when he began working at Great Southern, this was not T. C. W.'s foray into the timber industry - he had begun stacking and loading lumber when he was about fifteen or sixteen years of age, with his first sawmill work for Dudley McCreary, which I have covered in the past.
Fortunately, my mother, who was Dr. T. C. W.'s first cousin - their mothers were sisters - remained close with his daughter Margaret Magee Joffrion of North Carolina. And Cousin Margaret and I have maintained these ties, of kinship and friendship. At my request she generously shared with me her father's memoirs, the "Recollections of T.C.W. Magee, D.D.S. Tulane University Dental School 1922-27." The poignant material was penned in his own hand from 1968 - 1973 and was lovingly transcribed by his daughter Mary Elizabeth Magee Macias in the 1970s. Today, I relay more material verbatim, which offers insight to what historically has been known as "the mill" - the Great Southern Lumber sawmill - in Bogalusa where timber has long been the talk of the town. In Dr. T. C. W.'s own words, journal entry dated March 22, 1971:
"…On finishing high school in 1920 my dad contacted Mr. Zack Lee in charge of Great Southern Lumber Co.'s Employment Bureau. He suggested I report to his office and apply for work. On doing so, I was told to report Monday, 7:00 a.m., to Messrs. Laird and Lambert, foreman at the dry planer mill in the south end of the plant.
My job was to work behind the moulder machines. They turned out small strips of dressed lumber like quarter round, shoe mould, fancy trim, etc., which in turn I gathered, tied in bundles of different lengths and loaded onto dollies with four iron flanged wheels that were on a series of tracks or rails of lighter gauge than train rails. These tracks ran at right angles to the mill, which had twenty-machines in addition to the box factory units on the east end of operation all under one tremendously long roofed open air shed. 75% of box factory old employees had lost parts of hands or fingers in trim and cut off saws.
Another series of tracks extended from each of the machines northward as did the ones to the south side. In each case the rails terminated at a trough like drop off where an electrically operated transfer ran on a track running east and west and it would pick up two dollies of lumber on a double set of tracks on its operating platform and deliver them to desired track on opposite side of trough run.
Thus, the rough or undressed lumber was picked up from the rough shed, transferred to finishing machines, reloaded onto other dollies and transferred across to tracks leading to desired tracks traveling down ramps of the 'slick' or dressed lumber shed, and unwalled building. Through a similar series and 'live chains' the 'green' or untried lumber and timbers were brought from big sawing operations on down to the dry kilns or rough shed for further drying and storing.
This was the largest operating sawmill in the world at that time and to date it has not been exceeded in capacity. It would cut or manufacture 1,000,000 board feet of lumber daily. This was done by operating seven log carriages all at the same time and one gang which would saw a whole log or tree up with one pass through several parallel saws. Some rigs used huge band saws and others tall circle saws that had different diameters, which determined the size of the logs they could accommodate.
All this was operating on a two story elevated level with the power machinery below and the logs being drawn up by three log chains in a trough from a 40-acre lake or log pond. The logs were turned over and over as they were sliced by a huge power driven steel beam with spurs or lugs on one side that on the pressing of a lever kicked it up through a hole in the floor and against the log….
The main power belt required 500 ox hides to make it. The carriages that handled the logs had from two to four men stationed on its platform. Live steam pistons drove the carriages back and forth and this was termed shotgun feed operation. The men had strong steel stanchions to hold onto and a heavy leather safety belt around their body snapped onto the support post. In spite of this precaution sometime the carriage would run wild or get away from the operator and sling men off.
The logs would be brought to the mill by special log trains that ran onto a track that circled the mill pond. This track was banked so that when the supports of the car sides next to the water were released the logs rolled off into the water."
•Stay tuned for the conclusion in next week's column.
