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HARDWOOD RECORD 



continued under the old corporate name. 

 Later W. E. Berger was taken into this con- 

 cern. Both Mr. Dawkins and Mr. Berger 

 are also members of the Dawkins Brothers 

 Company, a planing mill concern at Ironton, 

 0. Mr. Dawkins is a foremost figure in pop- 

 lar lumber production. 



* * * 



The Kenova Poplar Manufacturing Com- 

 pany of Kenova, W. Va., is a concern of 

 r/hich W. A. Smith is president and the 

 presiding genius. Previous to 1893 Mr. 

 Smith was employed with the Chicago Coal 

 & Lumber Company as manager of their 

 Wttchita, Kan., plant, after which he came 

 to Coal Grove, O., as general office man of 

 the Yellow Poplar Lumber Company, ami 

 later acted as traveling salesman. In 1896 

 he went to Columbus, O., and engaged in the 

 wholesale lumber business with the George 

 D. Cross Lumber Company; later he organ- 

 ized the Smith & Sowers Company, of which 

 he was president and manager. In 1903 he 

 organized the Kenova Poplar Manufactur- 

 ing Company and became its president and 

 manager. Mr. Smith recognized the strate- 

 gic advantage of Kenova as a grouping 

 point for poplar and oak lumber, with its 

 three trunk lines of railway penetrating a 

 large portion of the poplar producing sec- 

 tion, as well as affording equally good facil- 

 ities for the distribution of the product. 

 He has here erected one of the most com- 

 plete planing mills and remanufacturing 

 plants in the country. The company sells 

 a considerable quantity of lumber in the 

 rcugh, but its specialty is the production of 

 poplar beveled siding, moldings and finish. 

 The company contemplates at an early date 

 erecting a hardwood flooring factory, for the 

 purpose of manufacturing oak flooring. Mr. 

 Smith's management of this enterprise has 

 been marked by success from the very start. 



* * * 



Joseph Keys of the Keys-Fannin Lum- 

 ber Company, Ashland, Ky., as a youth 

 learned the lumber business with his uncle, 

 J. C. Hale, who established the bung fac- 

 tory now known as the Central City Bung 

 Company, Central City, W. Va. His first 

 individual business venture was the forma- 

 tion of the Keys Lumber Company at 

 i. W. Va., with J. E. Walker as part- 

 This business was very successful and 

 T. X. Fannin of Ashland, Ky., was subse- 

 quently interested in it. In 1902 the prin- 

 "fli f the firm was moved to Ash- 

 laud, and it became known as the Keys- 

 Fannin Lumber Company. Mr. Keys de- 

 votes il'- greater part of his time to looking 

 the manufacturing interests of the 

 company at Graham, Va., where it has a 

 large planing mill. 



T. N. Fannin of the Keys-Fannin Lum- 

 ber I ompany of Ashland, Ky., had his first 

 experience in the poplar business in Elliott 

 county, Kentucky, where he was born. He 

 hi the manufacture and sale of 

 lumber m 1SS3, which he continued about 

 i which he invested his 



earnings in the stave business at Leon, Ky. 

 At that period stave making was a fast 

 money-making proposition, and Mr. Fannin 

 invested a part of his surplus in the lumber 

 business. In 1899 he became associated 

 with W. H. Dawkins in the W. H. Dawkins 

 Lumber Company, Ashland, Ky., and also 

 with his brother B. B. Fannin and Giles 

 Wright, both of Ashland, in the Giles 

 Wright Lumber Company. In 1901 Mr. Fan- 

 nin, together with Joseph Keys and J. E. 



Walker, organized the Keys Lumber Com- 

 pany, at Welch, W. Va., and withdrew from 

 the other companies in which he was in- 

 terested. Since 1902 he has devoted his en- 

 tire time to the latter named company, 

 which was reorganized as the Keys-Fannin 

 Lumber Company. The headquarters of this 

 corporation are at Ashland, Ky. It has sev- 

 eral sawmills scattered through the poplar 

 district, and conducts a large planing mill 

 at Graham, Va. 



'Builders of Lumber History. 



NUMBER IX. 



Henry Maley. 



At Memphis some years ago, a young lum- 

 berman with his hair parted in the middle, 

 and wearing a Tuxedo suit was brought up 

 and introduced to Jerry Wlialen, an old time 

 hardwood man. After the young man had 

 made his adieus, Jerry shook his head and 

 sighed sadly. 



"What is the matter?" asked a friend. 



"O! to think," said Jerry, "that in my 

 time and Henry Maley 's time, they should 

 call such a thing a 'lumberman!' " 



Who doesn 't know Henry Maley of Edin- 

 I : j. Iml..' Or. if they don't know him, 

 who hasn't heard of him? As a man who is 

 onto the hardwood lumber business from soda 

 to hock, from Bath to Beersheba, from A to 

 izzard, he is known the length and breadth 

 of the land, and also down in Boston and 

 over in Europe. He is known as the father 

 of the hardwood lumber business. It is said 

 that Indiana is the mother and Henry Maley 

 the father, and in his career he has seen the 

 business grow from a little circle around 

 Indianapolis and has watched it spread over 

 the state and the entire country like the 

 measles in a district school. 



lie is sixty-tour years old. Now some men 

 are old at sixty-four, but not Henry Maley. 

 Where a man's heart is young, where he loves 

 his joke and loves his friends, sixty four is 

 not so very old. In fact, he isn 't old at all. 

 As someone expressed it, he is sixty-four 

 a young. The Hardwood Record believes 

 it expresses a universal wish when it says it 

 hopes that he will live to be one hundred 

 years old — or young. 



In the years he has been engaged in the 

 hardwood lumber trade he has prospered. Be- 

 ginning in a small way, his business steadily 

 increased until it may now be ranked among 

 a half dozen of the largest operations in the 

 I iiitcd States. He owns and controls seven 

 i sawmills, cutting high-grade quartered 

 oak, and a furniture factory; and he is also 

 interested in several other enterprises. He is 

 said to have made more money in the manu- 

 facture and sale of hardwood lumber than 

 any man engaged in the business. For, aside 

 from the money he has accumulated, he has 

 lived, and lived well, and has reared a family 

 of boys who are veritable "chips of the old 

 block." He has always been generous* with 

 his family and his iriends, and the man who 



has failed in the past twenty-five years with- 

 out "sticking" Henry Maley has overlooked 

 his hand. 



Mr. Maley 's prosperity is due to his thor- 

 ough knowledge of the finesse of the lumber 

 business. What he doesn't know about buy- 

 ing timber, manufacturing lumber, grading 

 it and getting the right price for it, no man 

 knows. When you step into one of his mills 

 with him, and a good white oak log is rolled 

 on the carriage, he becomes as alert as the 

 commander of a war ship in action. He holds 

 up one finger, or two, or makes some other 

 cabalistic sign to the sawyer, who has had 

 his eye on him from the moment he entered 

 ilic mill. And he becomes absorbed and is 

 prone to forget that anyone is with him until 

 the log is reduced to boards. 



He has taken much interest in the making 

 of rules of inspection, attending all the meet- 

 ings and taking part in all the discussions. 

 At first it was necessary for the National As- 

 sociation to change its rules frequently to 

 meet the varying views of different sections. 

 Mr. Maley took part in and approved every 

 change. Finally, after this had gone on for 

 eight or ten years, he was asked "How much 

 have you changed your grades in all these 

 years?" "Changed them?" he said, "I 

 have not changed them at all; I make the 

 same grades today that I have always made. 

 The rules are now such that if a fellow fol- 

 lows them, he will get around to my way of 

 grading." 



Henry Maley is an honest man, but he 

 makes no parade of his integrity. He is hon- 

 est, simply because he doesn't know how to 

 be anything else. He belongs to a race of 

 lumbermen who are fast disappearing from 

 the face of the earth, and leaving the world 

 poorer for their going. They can no more be 

 replaced than can the splendid white oak tim- 

 ber of their native state. Such men and 

 such tics come but once in history. 



It is therefore with undisguised pleasure 

 that the Hardwood Eecord presents to its 

 readers a supplement portrait of Henry 

 Maley. 



Adams & Raymond of Knoxville, Term., com- 

 iii. in..] work May 1 on their new veneer plant 

 at Lonsdale, a Knoxville suburb. The main 

 building will be 160x160 teel and one story 

 high. Several other buildings will be added to 

 the plant in the near future. 



