36 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



begin work on a i;ii';;<' u act t.»l' niixiMi tlinbiT soon. 

 The (liirk Hnb and Spoke Fmloiy Is uniler ion- 

 stnu'Ilon, and when completed will employ ir»0 

 men. It Is to be located In Ibc same territory as 

 tbe Nlemeyer plant, and will be one of tlie larg- 

 est hardwood I'oncerns In the slate. 



The plant of the ICIdorado Hardwood and 

 Manufacturing' Company at ICIilorado is belufj 

 moved about -100 feet soulli of Its present loca- 

 tion, and Is also liohif; mmh enlarged. C. S. 

 Jackson Is the new mana;;er In cliarye. 



The Bluff City 1, umber Company of I'lne ItlulT 

 has been made the defendant In a suit for 

 ?25,000 damages. Hied by the Alabama Lumber 

 and Shingle Company and O. O. Carnahan. The 

 Bluff City concern Is In a rather bad situation 

 just now. the plant at Clio. Ark., having recently 

 been shut down by order of Chancellor lUllott 

 of rine Bluff lo await the developments In the 

 preliminary hearings in connection with the 

 tragedy at that place, in which two men were 

 shot to death and a third disappeared so com- 

 pletely that no trace of his body has ever been 

 found. The cause of the tragedy Is alleged to 

 have been the result of the famous legal flgbt 

 for possession of the Bluff City Lumber Com- 

 pany's Interests between J. B. Rutherford and 

 Capt. J. B. York. It is stated that the interests 

 of this entire concern, one of the largest in the 

 South, having plants in a number of towns in 

 the state, may be disposed of by the court in 

 order to finally adjudicate the matter, thus dis- 

 solving the concern as a corporate body. 



The LaCrosse Cooperage Company of LaCrossc, 

 Wis., has closed a deal with the Ozan Lumber 

 Company at Prescott for a tract of 3,680 acres 

 of fine hardwood, and will establish a stave 

 factory at Prescott. 



Tbe machinery in the hardwood plant to be 

 operated at ,lunction City is being placed, and 

 the mill, it is reported, will soon open for 

 business. 



The Xashville Lumber Company is making 

 something of a departure from lumber work. 

 They are sinking a well on their property on 

 the Saline river to make a test for gas. 



At Arkansas City several institutions have 

 shut down during the money stringency, but the 

 Standard Tie Company is still doing a fair 

 business. 



From Warren, Ark., comes a wail of car short- 

 age and the complaint that the railroads are 

 placing an embargo on cars, restricting their use 

 to the movement of agricultural products rather 

 than lumber. Tbe millmen declare such an 

 attitude will do them great harm. 



The United States Circuit Court of Appeals 

 has sustained a decision of Judge Jacob Trieber 

 of this district of the federal court in the case 

 of the Helena Box Company versus H. H. Sal- 

 mon & Co., in which the plaintiff asked damages 

 tor breach of contract in the purchase of a lot 

 of Cottonwood lumber by the New York concern. 

 The timber had been contracted for when a 

 slump came in tbe market and the defendant 

 refused to take the material. It was finally 

 sold by the box company, who sued for the dif- 

 ference between the original contract price and 

 the amount of the sale. The suit was won and 

 the box concern was awarded a $10,000 judg- 

 ment. 



D. W. Milam of Fayetteville and John Ellis of 

 Fort Smith have been awarded the contract for 

 1,000,000 ties to be supplied to an eastern rail- 

 road company. 



George J. Miller of Sherman, Ind., represent- 

 ing the Ohio Stave Company of Louisville, Ky., 

 Is making the preliminary arrangements for the 

 establishment of a stave factory at Dermott, Ark. 



Ashland. 



The boom In the Guyan river, owned by C. 

 Crane & Co. of Cincinnati, broke in tbe recent 

 rise and a large number of logs floated out Into 

 the Ohio. 



M. F. Loftus, mill foreman for the Yi^Ilow 

 Poplar Lumber Company at Coal Grove, Ohio, 

 sustained a fracture of five ribs and terrible 

 bruises about the body by falling from the top 

 of the mill run, a distance of 2:t feet, owing 

 to a misstep in the dark. He will be unable to 

 attend to business duties feu- several weeks. 



Burchelt and Burns, who have been operating 

 a sawmill at Zelda, Ky., have made a deed of 

 assignment to William Cecil as trustee In the 

 sum of .«;1.">.I100 indebtedness. 



Al Wittenberg was the principal loser in the 

 fire that recently destroyed the lumber town 

 Oceana in West Virginia. Ills sawmills were 

 destroyeil. bis horses and wagons, and also a 

 lai-ge (|uanlity of lumber. Ills loss was $l."i.000, 

 well covered by insurance. Mr. Wittenberg was 

 in Cincinnati at the time after money to pay off 

 Ills men. 



A contract has just been made with the 

 Baltimore and Ohio Southwestern railroad by 

 the cross tie dealer, W. E. Tripp of Portsmouth, 

 Ohio, to supply that road with 400,000 ordinary 

 ties and 100,000 switch ties, the latter to be of 

 a superior quality. This is tbe largest contract 

 Mr. Tripp has made since engaging in the cross- 

 tie business and he expects this contract alone 

 lo keep him busy for a year. 



The Yellow Poplar Lumber Company, after 

 running steadily for the past year, commencing 

 November 20, 1906, has now closed down owing 

 to scarcity of timber. The company owns an 

 immense amount of timber, but it is back in the 

 mountains and will require an exceedingly wet 

 spell to float it to the nearby streams. With the 

 two band mills in operation this big plant has a 



capacity of about 12,"'i,noo feet of sawed lumber 

 a day consisting of ten hours. 



The sum of $800 was drawn from the Mc- 

 Dowell (,'ounty Bank of Welch, W. Va., on the- 

 17th of September last, by a check on D. B. 

 Young, a foreman of the Hitter Lumber Com- 

 pany's plant at Hurley, made payable to a man 

 by the name of George Horner and endorsed by 

 the same Horner who was apparently Its bearer. 

 A day or two afterward the check was discov- 

 ered to be a forgery and the Welch police were 

 put on the case. Their investigation resulted 

 not In tbe detection of the forger but in the loca- 

 tion and arrest of a man by the name of George 

 Horner in Portsmouth, Ohio. Horner has been 

 employed by the Interstate Transfer Company 

 of that city and by James Kelly, a contractor, 

 for several months and is prepared to prove by 

 alibi that he was in Portsmouth during all of 

 the month of September. Horner claims he can 

 neither read nor write, and has never been at 

 Welch. He was in the employ of the Hitter 

 Lumber Company from February to June of thl8 

 year, but in all that time never left the town 

 of Hurley. After being arrested Horner ex- 

 pressed his willingness to go to Welch and face 

 tbe bank authorities. It is believed he is tbe 

 victim of the real forger who used Horner's 

 name to cover his work. 



Everything is very quiet here, but dealers are 

 all hoping for better things with the dawn of 

 the new year. Nearly all tbe local mills are 

 shut down. Vansant, Kitchen & Co. are running 

 for a few days to cut up a small amount of 

 timber brought out on a recent rise in Big 

 Sandy. 



S. M. Bradley was a business visitor from 

 Morehead this week. He says there is little 

 doing in the lumber business there, many mills 

 being shut down. 



Hardwood Market. 



(By HABD'WOOD BECOBD Bxclnsive Uarket Beporters.) 



A Sew rafts came out on the late timber stage 

 of the Sandy river. They went to Vansant- 

 Kitchen and the Nigh Lumber Company. On 

 account of the present money flurry only con- 

 tracted timber will be run. 



Chicago. 



The local hardw^ood trade is looking decidedly 

 better, although purchases are still of a hand- 

 to-mouth variety. Lumber stocks at all the 

 factories have been reduced to tbe low'est pos- 

 sible stage commensurate with doing business, 

 but it is fully expected that quite liberal buying 

 will now prevail. During the dull period of the 

 last six weeks there has been comparatively 

 little price cutting, and sales will doubtless be 

 resumed on about the same scale of value that 

 prevailed previous to the financial flurry. All 

 tbe local dealers are very optimistic over tbe 

 outlook. With the improved banking facilities 

 which now prevail in Chicago, there is no reason 

 why their most sanguine expectations should not 

 be realized. 



Boston. 



Dealers in hardwoods are still obliged to refer 

 to the future if they wish to speak encourag- 

 iugly of business. The money stringency, fol- 

 lowed as it has been by a curtailment in gen- 

 eral business, has brought about peculiar condi- 

 tions. Asking prices for lumber show no par- 

 ticular change. In a few cases orders for lum- 

 ber have been cancelled, but it is felt that 

 such orders will be back In the market before 

 long. Just at present buyers learn that lum- 

 ber is being offered by some manufacturers at 

 concessions; consequently they feel they should 

 buy at lower prices, if at all. No doubt a 

 concern with ready cash today can pick up 

 several lots of very desirable lumber at prices 

 that will look like real bargains when general 

 business improves. These offers to sell at lower 

 prices are not brought out by larger offerings 

 or stocks, but is directly due to the fact that 

 lumber manufacturers need money. Where a 

 manufacturer Is offering ten cars at a low fig- 



ure compared witli his asking price two months 

 ago be would probably withdraw eight cars If 

 he made a sale of two. 



Woodworking establishments in and about 

 Boston are not busy. Several have been forced 

 to lay off part of their help, and the majority 

 are using up what stock they have on hand 

 instead of buying new. A favorable feature of 

 this is that when business does pick up few 

 large consumers will have any amount of stock 

 worth mentioning. 



I'lain oak is in rather large offering, but quo- 

 tations remain unchanged. Quartered oak Is 

 more plentiful — not because of a larger produc- 

 tion but because buyers are holding out of the 

 market. Quotations range for one-inch stock 

 from $80 to $85, but no business can be done 

 at the top price. Walnut continues well held 

 and offerings are not large. Basswood is re- 

 ported as difficult to obtain. Maple flooring 

 moves in a moderate way only, and reports of 

 stock being offered at less than list prices con- 

 tinue to be heard. Demand for whitewood has 

 ruled quiet of late, but asking prices remain 

 unchanged. Louisiana mills have been quoting 

 lower prices for cypress, but no larger volume of 

 business is found as a result. 



New York. 



There has not been any material change In 

 hardwood market conditions since last noted, 

 except, perhaps, a little better outlook than dur- 

 ing the financial flurry. 



Hardwood purchases are confined pretty strict- 

 ly to current wants and absolute needs. At the 

 same time there is a growing inclination in the 

 part of the larger hardwood buyers, who are 

 readily able to finance their business needs, to 

 take advantage of the present marked reduction 



