HARD TIMES -- HARD WORK

By Marshall McClung
Graham Star Correspondent

The early days of Graham County saw a breed of people that saw a lot of hard times and did a lot of hard work.  The primary occupations in those days were farming and logging, or both.  Most work was done by manual labor using primitive hand tools.

Some of the early lumber companies to begin logging operations in Graham County were the Belding Lumber Company, and the Heiser Lumber Company.  They bought tracts of timber in the Santeetlah, West Buffalo, and Snowbird drainages.  Much of the county in time was logged and cut over.  Even the present day Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest was almost logged.  Samuel McFalls of Andrews, who constructed splash dams to help float the logs downstream, was camped where the parking lot for Joyce Kilmer Picnic Area, called “The Run Around” by locals.  He was preparing to start construction of a splash dam in the area when it was decided not to cut the timber at that time.  Thus, Joyce Kilmer was spared the axe, so to speak.

Some of the earlier sawmills in Graham County that were powered by water included one operated by Jason Hyde on Atoah Creek, one on Long Creek run by John Barker, and Hardy Wiggins’ father had a sawmill near the Sweetgum Community in the Tallulah area.

Whiting Manufacturing Company conducted logging operations in Panther Creek and the Welch Cove area near present day Fontana.  Two of the larger lumber companies to operate in Graham County were the Kanawah Hardwood Lumber Company and Bemis Hardwood Lumber Company.  Kanawah began cutting timber here around 1899 in the West Buffalo area.  They built a wagon road from Andrews through Atoah Gap to Little Snowbird, and then crossed Big Snowbird through Hardslate Gap to West Buffalo. Kanawah had the first hydro-electric operations in Western North Carolina on Little Snowbird.  Believe it or not, Little Snowbird at that time had electric lights before Asheville did.  In 1905, the company started construction on a railroad that ran from Andrews and down Little Snowbird, known as the Snowbird Valley Railroad Company.  The tracks were removed in 1917 and sold to France to assist them in the war with Germany.

Bemis Hardwood Lumber Company began purchasing land in Graham County in 1924.  Large tracts of land were purchased by Bemis in the Snowbird and West Buffalo areas.  Bemis began construction of their band mill in the Milltown area (now the recycling center) in 1926.  Much of the mill was destroyed by a fire in 1967.  Bemis operated several logging camps over the years as well as the railroad that ran from their mill up Tallulah Creek to Topton to the Southern tracks.

Many other small sawmill and logging operations came and went over the following years.  Environmental concerns and an uncertain economy have taken their toll on logging operations here in recent years.  However, logging has been an important part of our history, and our people have seen a lot of “hard times and hard work.”