HARDWOOD RECORD 



25 



ting a limited supply of logs during 

 December. Following the usual rule of 

 tides in the river, no high water can be 

 expected before the middle of January or 1st of 

 February. The year 1903 will be a banuer year 

 for Chattanooga in all lines. The boom in leal 

 estate is the greatest during any year since 

 1890. and in the way of building operations 

 lOOu is unsurpassed. The bank deposits on this 

 date are the greatest in the history of the 

 city, and the j>ostoflice receipts show an in- 

 crease perhaps the largest in proportion to the 

 size of the city of any first-class office south 

 of the Ohio river. 



The Willingham Lumber Company has re- 

 cently erected two large dry sheds and has also 

 installed a new sawmill at Steele's. Ala., mak- 

 ing in all four large mills which are operated 

 by the company. The new mill has a capacity 

 of 20,000 feet per day. 



AV. M. Fowler, treasurer of the <_'ase Lum- 

 ber Company of this city and president of the 

 Fowler-I'ersonett Lumber Company of Birming- 

 ham, Ala., recently returned from a trip to 

 Birmingham. 



M. M. Erb. vice president of the Case Lumber 

 Company, recently returned from a business trip 

 to Atlanta. 



Ferd Brenner, president of the Ferd Brenner 

 Lumber Company, spent several days at the 

 Korfolk, Va., plant recently. 



George L. Smith, surve.Tor general of the 

 Js'ational Hardwood Lumber Ass<K'ia!ion, with 

 headquarters in Indianapolis, passed through 

 this city on his way from New Orleans, where 

 be employed Charles E. McSmith as .salaried 

 deputy inspector. 



St. Iiouis. 



W. D. Reeves, the well-known hardwood 

 manufacturer of Helena, Ark., passed through 

 the city the other day on his way home 

 from Philadelphia, whither he had gone in the 

 hope of saving the life of a fellow lumber- 

 man in his section. 



The new yard of the Mosberger-O'Ileilly 

 Lumber Company, at the Terminal tracks and 

 Bulwer avenue, will be well stocked with 

 lumber shortly, cypress being a special fea- 

 ture of the large stocks which will be carried 

 at that point. The office building will be a 

 model of neatness and convenience. 



An order for 30,000 buggy bodies was re- 

 centl.v placed by the Banner Buggy Company of 

 this city with the Pewitsky & Collins Carriage 

 Woodwork Company, who will have to run 

 overtime to get them out in the time specified, 



Capt. C. F, Liebke has been taking a hand 

 in the fight against the exorbitant St. Louis 

 bridge tolls, and as the principal officer of 

 the Lumbermen's Exchange he has made 

 strong points in showing the Municipal 

 Bridge and Terminal Commission how the dis- 

 criminations have injured the lumber busi- 

 ness in this section. In his communication 

 to this commission he made the following 

 statements: 



"By the bridge arbitrary we are compelled 

 to pay IV2C per cwt. on all shipments to and 

 from points east and north. 



"This 154c per cwt., which figures from 75c 

 to $1.00 per thousand feet, makes a great dis- 

 crimination in freight rates against St. Louis. 



"As illustrations I mention the following 

 rates: 



"The rate on lumber from St. Louis to 

 Sioux Rapids, la., is IS^^c, while from Cairo. 

 III. — 149 miles south of St. Louis — it is the 

 same. 



"To Toronto, Can., it is 20c from St. T ouis 

 and only 19c from Cairo. 



"To points east of Buffalo the rate is He 

 per cwt. in favor of Cairo and Memphis in 

 addition to the IHc bridge arbitrary. 



"With this l%c rate removed our lumber- 

 men would be placed in position to compete 

 with Cairo, Memphis and other competing 



points on all business to and from the north 

 and east." 



Capt. Liebke also forcibly brought before 

 the commi.ssion the poor terminal switching 

 facilities afforded St. Louis and the exorbitant 

 charges made : also the bill of lading difficulty 

 with roads having no St. Louis termini. 



Memphis. 



There was a ver.v lively meeting of the 

 Lumbermen's Club of Memphis a few days 

 ago at which the subject of alleged unjust 

 discrimination against lumber interests on the 

 part of the railroads of this section was dis- 

 cussed. It was claimed that the railroads are 

 taking all their flat cars into Xjouisiana for 

 the handling of sugar shipments and that 

 there are very few available for the handling 

 of logs into Memphis. It was further as- 

 serted that station agents at some points have 

 been given instructions to use all box cars for 

 the handling of cotton shipments instead of 

 lumber. A strong committee was appointed 

 to confer with the railroads and see if some 

 relief could not be had. This committee has 

 already called upon Superintendent W. S. 

 King of the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Rail- 

 road Company, but has made no report of its 

 findings nor has it made public any of its 

 recommendations. There will be a meeting 

 of the Lumbermen's Club at the end of the 

 current week and at that time the committee 

 will give its report, together with such recom- 

 mendations as it may have prepared. 



T. B. Allen of T. B. Allen & Co., who has 

 removed from Memphis to Galveston, has been 

 elected an honorary member of the Lumber- 

 men's Club of Memphis. The following new 

 members have been received: J. S. Dickson 

 and U. S. Lambert of the Green River Lumber 

 Company and H. M. Kramer of C. & W. 

 Kramer, Princedale, Ark. 



The great difficulty in securing cars for 

 handling log shipments into Memphis has 

 caused some of the mills to shut down tem- 

 porarily, while most of them are handicapped 

 to a considerable extent. One prominent 

 lumberman, in discussing the situation, said 

 that in time he believed it would be neces- 

 sary for lumbermen to own their own cars 

 and leave only the handling of them to the 

 railroads. This question, however, has two 

 sides and there are some obstacles, in the 

 opinion of traffic men. that may make even 

 this solution of the trouble impossible. 



Elliott Lang, whose resignation as secretary 

 and traffic manager of the National Lumber 

 Exporters' Association was announced in the 

 last issue of the Hardwood Record, will, after 

 .Ian. 1. be connected in an important capacity 

 with R. J. Darnell, Inc.. a prominent export 

 lumber firm of this city. The association has 

 so far given out nothing with reference to 

 its plans regarding the choice of a successor. 

 A recent Memphis visitor was George L. 

 Smith, sui-veyor general of the National Hard- 

 wood Lumber Association, with headquarters 

 at Indianapolis. Ind. While here he secured 

 .=;ix new members for the association, thus 

 showing himself an effective worker in that 

 direction. 



A prominent exporter, in discussing the for- 

 eign situation in regard to quarter-sawed oak, 

 says there is a good demand for thin stock, 

 in both red and white, but that little suc- 

 cess is encountered in handling stock one inch 

 or thicker. The same statement applies in 

 a measure to gum. 



The W. E. Smith Lumber Company re- 

 ports a further improvement in the demand 

 for all grades of Cottonwood, the production 

 is limited, the visible supply restricted, the 

 demand of increasing proportions and prices 

 showing improvement. 



Joe Cabell, southern freight agent of the 



Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern here for some 

 years and one of the most popular of rail- 

 road officials in lumber circles, has tendered 

 his resignation and gone to New Orleans. 

 where he will have his headquarters as traffic 

 manager of the Mexican & American Steam- 

 ship Company. He is succeeded here by 

 W. W. Blakesly, commercial freight agent 

 of the Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern at 

 Louisville, Ky. Lumbermen generally ex- 

 press regret at the resignation of Mr. Cabell, 

 who has been a prominent figure in all the 

 movements of local lumbermen. 



Max Sondheimer, president of the E. Sono- 

 heimer Company and a member of the com- 

 mittee appointed by the Lumbermen's Club 

 to take up the car shortage with the rail- 

 roads, says there has been some improvement 

 in the car situation of late, a number of 

 points reporting a sufficient number of cars. 

 He says, however, that he has information re- 

 garding the prospective movement of grain 

 from the West and Northwest to the gulf 

 ports that leads to the belief that this relief 

 will be only temporary. 



R. J. Darnell, Inc., is connecting tramways 

 with the main line of the road on which its 

 timber holdings lie and it is expected that 

 this will greatly facilitate the loading of cars 

 and the handling of timber. 



The Ayer & Lord Tie Company has pur- 

 chased a tract of 12,500 acres of hardwood 

 timber lands in Stewart county, Tennessee, 

 paying therefor $60,000. The land was bought 

 from a banking company of Cleveland, O. 

 The timber will be used for the manufacture 

 of cross ties, and work of development will 

 be begun immediately. The tract in ques- 

 tion is one of the largest and most extensive 

 in Stewart county. 



J. W. McClure of Thompson & McClure re- 

 ports a good demand for hardwood lumber ' 

 and says he believes in higher prices as buy- 

 ers are becoming anxious about the pro- 

 nounced scarcity of hardwood lumber in the 

 South. As giving some idea of the number of 

 buyers now seeking lumber in Mississippi, he 

 says he is reliably informed that there were 

 forty buyers counted in a single day recently 

 at Tutwiler, Miss. 



Minneapolis. 



Uuildiug operations in Minneapolis have been 

 lurtailed by cold weather, but a great deal of 

 interior work is going on, and sash and door 

 factories are still busy turning out special 

 work in doors, windows and interior finish. Rec- 

 ords 01 (he building inspector show that the 

 value of work put under way this year is 40 

 per cent greater than that of 1904. The eleven 

 months of the present year that have elapsed 

 have produced a grand total of permits valued 

 at .'!;9,534,liy. The record for the entire year 

 of 1904 was only $6,701,965, and that was con- 

 sidered a good building year. 



W. H. Sill of the Minneapolis Lumber Com- 

 pany spent the greater part of last week in 

 Chicago, Milwaukee and other cities, and was 

 unable to attend the annual meeting of the 

 Northwestern Hardwood Lumbermen's Associa- 

 tion, of which he is vice president. P. R. 

 Hamilton of the same company returned this 

 week from a business trip to Ruby. Wis., the 

 location of the Ruby Lumber Company, 



A. F. Ileiu of Tony, Wis., of the well-known 

 hardwood and cooperage manufacturing concern, 

 the John Hein Lumber Company, was a busi- 

 ness visitor in Minneapolis last week. A. M. 

 Paulson of Paulson Bros., Luck, Wis., was also 

 here looking into market conditions. 



E. Payson Smith of the E. Payson Smith Lum- 

 ber Company reports that his concern is enjoy- 

 ing a very satisfactory demand for both north- 

 ern and southern stock, and that the demand 

 from the railroads for oak ties is at present a 

 leading feature of the trade. 



