YEARS OF
SERVICE
L — ~
Governor Francis Cherry of Arkansas and Gov
ernor Robert F. Kennon of Louisiana in celebrat
ing the 50th Anniversary of the Huttig, Arkansas,
Sawmill Thursday, September 30, participated in
a ceremony symbolic of the reforestation practices
by which the modern Southern lumber industry is
maintaining its forests in perpetuity.
The governors, assisted in felling a 50-year-old
pine tree and each planted pine seedlings on the
state line between Huttig, Arkansas and Marion,
Louisiana. A permanent marker will be placed at
the site of the "Governors’ Pines.” James E. Mix
on, state forester for Louisiana, and Fred H. Lang,
his Arkansas counterpart, participated in the cere
monies.
The ceremony was part of a program marking
the completion of a 16-month modernization pro
gram carried out by the Huttig Sawmill of the
Forest Products Division of Olin Mathieson Chem
ical Corporation. The dedication program at the
Sawmill included talks by the governors and com
pany officials.
Others who were present include John M. Olin,
chairman of the board of Olin Mathieson Chem
ical Corporation; John W. Hanes, vice president
for finance; Spencer T. Olin, director and mem
ber of the finance and executive committees; N.
Harvey Collisson, vice president for operations;
Oren Harris, Congressman from El Dorado, Ar
kansas, state and local officials and many persons
prominent in the lumber industry, according to
an announcement by Robert H. Evans, general
manager of the Forest Products Division at
Shreveport.
The 50th Anniversary Celebration was high
lighted by a guided tour of the modernized mill.
Families of company employees and Huttig school
children toured the mill on September 29.
The modernization program is believed to be
the most extensive ever undertaken at one time in
a Southern sawmill. New facilities incorporate
many automatic operations and a minimum of
materials handling. Among the new devices in
stalled in the mill are a mechanical stacker, a me-
HUTTIG SAWMILL
OBSERVED 50th
ANNIVERSARY
LAST MONTH
>
chanical unstacker, automatic edge sorter, Golden
Pine trademark, new cross-circulation dry kilns
with fully automatic temperature and humidity
control, a new 600 x 100 ft. rough shed arid a 10-
ton overhead crane that stores lumber packages up
to 30 feet high.
The modernization program was directed by W.
H. Brown, production manager, and J. D. Rhodes,
division engineer, and was engineered by the firm
of H. E. Bovay, Jr., of Houston.
The Huttig mill draws on a 250 thousand acre
tract of Southern pine and hardwood in Arkansas
and Louisiana. The tract is part of the company’s
total holdings of 450 thousand acres in the Ark-
La-Tex region. The mill cuts mainly short-leaf and
loblolly pine, as well as lesser amounts of oak, gum,
and other hardwood species.
Trees are selectively marked for cutting by the
company’s own forestry department directed by
Travis MacClendon, forestry manager, and E. A.
Freeman, head forester at Huttig. Logging is done
by independent contractors.
Due to increased electrification of these new
facilities, the Arkansas Power and Light Company
has brought a new power line and substation of
greatly increased capacity, which has been tied in
with the company’s own generating facilities.
The town of Huttig, founded in 1904, has a
population of 1,000. Most of its wage-earners
work for the Huttig Sawmill which has a $1,000,-
000-a-year payroll. Once a company town, Huttig
is now changing to a town of home-owners, and
more than 100 families have recently purchased
their own homes.
The original Huttig Mill was completed in 1904
as the Union Sawmill Company by E. A. Frost and
C. D. Johnson, pioneers in the Southern lumber
industry. It later became a part of Frost Lumber
Industries, Incorporated. In 1952 Frost was merged
with Olin Industries, Inc., to become the com
pany’s Forest Products Division. Olin merged
with Mathieson Chemical Corporation August 31,
1954 to form Olin Mathieson Chemical Corpor
ation.
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