26 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



THE STORY OF 



YELLOW POPLAR 



Illustrations from Photographs by Editor Hardwood Record 





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IN THE BREAKS OF THE BIG SANDY, SHOWING ONE OF THE YELLOW POPLAR 

 LUMBER COMPANY'S LOG DUMPS 



CHAPTER II 



The Big Sandy river, or according to its own Indian name, tlie 

 Cliattarawha, has been famous in lumber history ever since tlie 

 manufacture of yellow poplar became a commercial pursuit. Other 

 niiglity good poplar grows in the AUeghenies, the Blue Eidge and the 

 lower Appalachians, but no concrete growth in any locality has 

 approximated in stand per acre, in thi,n sap and yellow heart, in 

 splendid texture or average size the poplar of the Big Sandy. 



This great stream flowing into the Ohio river at Catlettsburg, Ky., 

 just above Ashland, and opposite Coal Grove, the milling and general 

 headquarters of the Yellow Poplar Lumber Company, for a distance of 

 about one hundred and tifty miles, forms the boundary line between 

 eastern Kentucky and western West Virginia. In its upper branches 

 it extends through a half dozen counties of eastern Kentucky and 

 has other branches in Buchanan, Dickenson and Wise counties, Vir- 

 ginia. Along its lower reaches it has minor branches, |)ut on the 

 West Virginia side of the river the watershed is narrow and most 

 of the water from that region flows eastward into the Guyandotte 

 river. 



As near as can be estimated, the average cut per acre of poplar 

 limber on the Big Sandy and its tributaries has averaged about 

 2,500 feet. This area involves a territory approximately 40 by 150 

 miles — 6,000 square miles, or 3,840,000 acres — which would show, at 

 a rough guess, the total poplar stand of the past and the compara- 

 tively small amount of the present to be in the neighborhood of 

 nine and a half billion feet. 



Of course, the lower reaches of the river are old and practically 

 exhausted timber sections, and the greater portion of the timber 

 tributary to the streams that grew in Kentucky and West Virginia 

 has been cut. 



Levisa Pork, penetrating Lawrence, Johnson, Floyd and Pike coun- 

 ties, is one of the chief branches of the Sandy river and in that 



territory is regarded as the main stream of the river. However, 

 the other fork, making the dividing line between West Virginia and 

 Kentucky, is equally as well known as the Big Sandy. The stream 

 has its main fork at Levisa. The Levisa forks again above Pikeville, 

 in Pike count}", the main stem being Hussell Fork, which has its 

 sources over in Virginia. This section of the river breaks through 

 the Cumberland mountains at the state line which is known as the 

 ' ' Breaks of the Big Sandy. ' ' 



This is a tremendous and i)icturesque chasm strewn with rocks 

 often as big as a good sized house and has embattling cliflfs rising 

 to a height in some places of fifteen hundred feet. While there has 

 been a good deal of poplar timber of as fine quality as has ever been 

 cut above this gorge, it has remained for the Yellow Poplar Lumber 

 Company to devise means of getting this timber down to the rafting 

 water alcove Pikeville. From the Pikeville regions to the mouth of 

 the river, the Big Sandy is an ideal, well-banked and comparatively 

 placid mountain river. It has the finest log running stream in the 

 mountain country. 



The Yellow Poplar Lumber Company some years ago in supple- 

 menting its timber holdings, purchased large areas of land in Dick- 

 inson and adjoining counties in Virginia, anticipating that a railroad 

 would eventually be completed up the Big Sandy to the coal regions 

 in old Virginia. The Chesapeake & Ohio railroad built a line as far 

 as Elkhorn City and there, at least temporarih', extension has ceased. 



It came about then that the Yellow Poplar Lumber Company had 

 to devise means to stock its mills and it was necessary to 

 drive the bugbear — the breaks of the Big Sandy — with its logs. 

 Early in March of last year the company put in a logging operation, 

 with headquarters at Barts Lick, Dickinson county, Va., which is 

 somfe tliirtcen miles from tlie terminus of the Chesepeake & Ohio 

 railroad at Elkhorn City and across two mountain ridges. Men, live 

 stock, mnchinerj- and supplies were moved in and camp and tram- 



