Past Forests and Sawmills

 Crittenden County, must have had in the early days, wonderful forests with an abundance of all kinds of huge trees. Through the years the early settlers must have taken their toll on these forests. Recently I have been fortunate that people have shared some really good old pictures of sawmills that once were located here in the county. Though not much history is known about the pictures they are enjoyable to look at and shows us a different time in our past history.

 

 In 1908 the Forest Service was worried about how fast the timber in our area was being harvested, they wondered how long it would last. (Even today the forests all over the county are still being heavily timbered.)

 

To add a little past history about our forests to go with these old sawmill pictures are a few tidbits of history from the archives of the Crittenden Press. I hope you enjoy seeing these old pictures and reading the old history.

 

Feb. 13, 1902 - The Timber Question

I wish to call all the attention of your readers to a matter of some importance to us all now and will be more to the next generation. I mean the timber question.

 

The barrel makers have stripped our country of all that would do for barrels, and now are hunting out all that will do for headings, and the farmer will be left nothing for fencing. True we can use wire, but for the posts iron will not do. What will be needed is some durable timber for posts and the like.

 

Well, I think we can have them coming on. In this section and other places, I suppose, there is a large growth of young cedar on hand. I may be a little too enthusiastic but look on this as a God send – just in the nick of time. Cedar is the most durable timber we have, ad with a little attention each little cedar can be made a valuable stick of timber; by proper trimming in time we can make a nice, long bodied tree of a scrubby little bush.

 

When left to itself on open ground the cedar will branch from the ground and all go to limb, which is food for ornament; but for timber purposes by trimming you can make a twenty foot-post of it. While it is not as fast growing as some it will grow anywhere in poor land, hard tramped ground shaded ground, among thick timber, and is at home on a rocky hillside.

 

For ornament in the yard it makes a good cover for fowls, as well as an excellent roosting place, affording shelter from bad weather by the thick foliage.

 

So let us attend to our young cedars, and set more, and they will prove a blessing to the rising generation.

 

                                     (Picture shared by Nancy Hopkins Rushing)

Oct. 15, 1908 – Our Forests Fast Disappearing.

The study of the forest conditions of the state, which the U. S. Forest Service is now carrying on in cooperation with the Kentucky Board of Agriculture. Forestry has now extended to Crittenden County.

 

Mr. J. S. Holms is now riding through the county looking up the available supply of standing timber and ascertaining as closely as possible the annual output of all forest products. He will visit the chief saw mill men and timber men of the county and obtain from them on timber conditions, supplementing this with his own observations in the woods. This study is bringing out the truth with which we all more are less familiar, that the supply of merchantable timber is fast disappearing. 

 

In a few year time most of the counties in the state will scarcely have enough timber to supply the needs of their own people, and the end of the timber business as a means of livelihood to our citizens is in sights. That the big timber in this section has not been all cut before now seems almost remarkable.

 

 

This sawmill was located in the Sheridan area of Crittenden County.  The large square logs may be railroad ties.  All of the men are unidentified.  Picture courtesy of Dave Wilson, who was descended from the Wilson-Bebout families that lived near Sheridan.  Nothing but little saplings left to see in the background.