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Also see: Fisher Sawmill
Days Festival and Old
Mill Store
The Last of the Old Sawmill Towns Built During
the Golden Age of Lumbering
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| Aerial view of old Fisher |
The Village of Fisher, last of the old sawmill towns built
during the golden age of lumbering in Western Louisiana, was founded by
Captain John Barber White and Oliver Williams Fisher.
The two men were close friends as well as business partners.
Both were Missouri lumbermen. White, one of the great figures in the American
lumbering industry, descended from a long line of lumbermen dating back
to 1638. He was almost universally known as Captain White, a title which
was bestowed when his summer cottage in the Ozarks was built with two
chimneys. His neighbors only had one.
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| Depot |
Captain White lived next door in Kansas City, Mo. to Arthur
E. Stilwell, an empire building genius who promoted the construction of
the Kansas City Southern Railroad. He built the line almost due south
"from Shreveport through the forests of Louisiana" and located
his Gulf of Mexico terminal at Port Arthur, Texas.
He fired the partners' interest in the timberlands in
Louisiana along the railroad's right-of-way. Captain White and Fisher
began exploring the area as early as 1897, but it was nearly two years
before they were ready to act. They wanted to locate their sawmill in
Many but were turned down because its citizenry did not want all that
noise and dirt.
They purchased about 10,000 acres in the Sabine River
country six miles south of Many and incorporated Louisiana Long Leaf Lumber
Company, better known as 4-L, July 15, 1899. Since they could not locate
in Many, it was necessary to build a town, which was named Fisher in honor
of the company president and general manager. White was secretary-treasurer.
They selected W. W. (Willard) Warren superintendent and because of medical
problems involved in the operation of a swampland area, Warren took along
Dr. Franklin White, the captain's son.
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| Depot and Caboose |
When they left the train at the sawmill, the two young
men found themselves in the midst of a great forest. The people in the
area were hostile to northerners, hostile to corporations and distinctly
unfriendly to anything that might disturb their way of life. They emphasized
their dislike by shooting windows out of their cabin time after time.
Although these ungracious acts did not drive them away, malaria almost
did. They had to nurse each other through a succession of attacks. Despite
these obstacles, the sawmill was built and many of the previous objectors
found employment in the mill.
The original acres in Sabine Parish were augmented by
a series of purchases of additional timberlands within a 35 mile radius
of Fisher.
Fisher was the first large sawmill in the parish
and contributed immeasurably to the economy. It was was considered
one of the most important sawmill towns on the Kansas City Southern
Railroad.
The work was for young men. Typical crews worked
"from can to can't" six days a week. In the early days,
mule teams provided the power to pull the logs from the woods to
the mill. Oxen and even some cows were used.
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| One of the old homes |
Logs were brought in log trains and dumped in the mill
pond and herded across by boat to the jack ladder into the mill. The mill
was powered by a steam turbine with one long drive shaft going all the
way through the plant. Machines powered by belts and pulleys were connected
to the central shaft.
The 4-L Company did not build a shanty town as some
lumber companies did. Fisher was not a hastily arranged village
of clapboard houses but was laid out with a view of "something
more substantial", according to John Belisle, author of The
History of Sabine Parish.
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| Post Office |
"The townsite is among the prettiest in Sabine Parish
and was platted with uniform streets and avenues. Splendid homes have
been built for the employees and in numerous instances furnished with
all conveniences of a city, including electric lights and waterworks."
The village was and is bisected by the KCS Railroad
with the more pretentious homes for sawmill management on one side
of the tracks and employee homes of lesser proportions on the other
side. Traditional box frame houses were surrounded by whitewashed
and planked fences. Unique were the wooden sidewalks in front of
the homes and connecting the buildings.
The village also had an interdenominational church,
a depot, hospital, hotel, and schools. The company employed two
capable physicians to supply the medical needs of its employees.
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| Opera House |
The company commissary provided all the needs of life
from the cradle to the grave and also had a large trade with people of
the surrounding country. Many rode the KCS Railroad from north and south
to trade at the store, particularly on Saturdays. According to Belisle,
"the store furnishes the people with nearly every luxury which a
city store or market could offer" as well as staple supplies. The
town was an open market for the farmer and rural citizens found a ready
and profitable sale for their products.
The first half of the building was constructed in
1900 and the second half in 1914.
People came from Leesville, Natchitoches, Many,
and Mansfield to see movies in the opera house, the only "picture
show" in this part of the state.
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| Old Sawmill Company Store |
In addition, touring troupes from the chautauqua circuit
put on plays and stage shows, and stage celebrities played one night stands
as they journeyed by train between Kansas City and Port Arthur, Texas.
Famed country singer Hank Williams is reported to have sung there.
The 4-L Company logged out about 150,000 acres before
the virgin timber was exhausted in the middle 1930s. Second growth
trees, mainly short leaf pine, were then ready for cutting in some
parts of the property. A somewhat haphazard cutting was systematized
in the 1950s under which the company forester decided what trees
were to be cut. About one-tenth of the acreage was covered each
year by the woods crew. As a result their timber was constantly
renewing itself.
When 4-L was in its 62nd year of continuous operation,
it had produced more than one billion eight hundred feet of pine lumber
and about one-tenth that amount of hardwood.
In the 1960s the sawmill and town were sold to Boise
Cascade which was later transferred to Boise Southern. The new owners
continued to operate the sawmill, but they subdivided the town and
sold the homes and lots back to the residents.
Vancouver Plywood purchased the mill in January,
1970 as part of an integrated plywood and sawmill complex for Florien
and Fisher. The company replaced the old mill with an all electric
one. The replacement industry is a remanufacturing plant to saw
cants from its Florien log utilization center into lumber.
However, the town did not fare so well. The commissary
store was closed, the hotel was sold for lumber and some of the houses
were moved away. Passenger service from Kansas City to Port Arthur came
to a halt May 10, 1968. People began to worry that the town was going
to pass into oblivion as had happened to other sawmill towns. First, they
incorporated the village in 1971 and organized Fisher Heritage Foundation,
Inc. as their first moves toward preservation.
Boise Southern strengthened the preservation efforts
by conveying the office complex centering the historic village to
the Fisher Historic Foundation in special ceremonies November 20,
1972. Included in the property transfer were about nine and a half
acres of land containing the two story office building, commissary,
opera house, post office, paved parking lot, tree-shaded park and
"the birds, bees, and the grass thereon". The Kansas City
Southern had previously presented the village with the depot.
In May, 1979 a historical marker was unveiled in
the complex. It was erected by the Louisiana Department of Culture,
Recreation and Tourism and the Louisiana State Department of Transportation
and Development.
Fisher historic district was entered in the National
Register of Historic Places by the U. S. Department of the Interior,
Heritage Conservation and Recreation Thursday, August 9, 1979.
Source: Sabine Parish Library; author: Sabine
Index 9/6/79; photos by Frank Dutton
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