SMETHPORT RESIDENTS HELP CREATE BOGALUSA, LOUISIANA
"The Magic City"


Will Sullivan (1st mayor of Bogalusa), Miner Crary, Maurice Wuesher, Ganson Depew, Horace Redfield, Orlo Hamlin, Fred Lehr, Jim Whelan, F. L. Peck, Mrs. Depew, Major Hart,
Wlter Cooke, Jerry Crary, Frank Goodyear, Charles Goodyear, Jack Cassidy (2nd mayor of Bogalusa), and DanCushing.
Photo credit: Bogalusa Story, by C. W. Goodyear
More Bogalusa by Patricia D. McClendon

These are some of the men who helped created the city of Bogalusa, including Smethports' very own Orlo Hamlin (son of Henry Hamlin) and Horace Redfield. Also in the picture are Frank and Charles Goodyear from Buffalo, NY. Inspired by each other they built railroads, schools, churches, houses, and many other structures all in the name of their Great Southern Lumber Company.

It all started on the banks of Bogue Lusa (meaning Dark Waters), a small creek running through Washington Parish, LA; which later gained the name of Bogalusa. Before these settlers arrived there was nothing but a little community in the vast wilderness that was Washington Parish. The population grew from families, not immigration, so there was some intermarriage among the natives. The natives of Bogalusa were the ones who took over upholding the law, which there seemed to be more crime than good deeds. Most of the problems stemmed from big family quarrels.

Frank and Charles Goodyear met Will Sullivan on the train going to one of their many Pennsylvanian sawmills and gave him a job. Sullivan moved to Austin with his wife not to far from the sawmill. Soon Sulivan talked the Goodyears into moving towards contracting the logging of lumber, which was a big financial step. Both of the Goodyear brothers were into their fifties when they made this huge investment to buy lumbering land down south. Its was Frank, though, that had the ambition to make things bigger. He and his wife, Ella Goodyear, often attended fancy parties with the President Grover Cleveland. They lived in Bogalusa except for one month a year, which was spent in Pennsylvania and New York. All together they put about fifteen million dollars into buying the land and building what was needed for a booming town.

The Hamlin family from Smethport came into the picture next, along with the Crary family they bought three million dollars in capital stock. Although the Hamlin family had invested in Bogalusa from the very beginning. These revolutionary men blew the natives of Washington Parish out of the water with all of their talk of creating a big city. Most people were upset because they didn't want to see their trees be thinned out, but they soon changed their mind when they realized all the good it was going to bring. A civilization sprang up almost over night, amazing the whole of Washington Parish.


Perpetual Timber Job of Local Capitalists Attracts Attention
McKean County Democrat; April 17, 1930

The Last issue of the National Geographic Magazine devotes much to an interesting feature article on Louisiana by Ralph Graves, which describes in detail the vast lumbering operations of the Great Southern Lumber company at Bogalusa, La.

The subject is of great local interest due to the fact that the vast Bogalusa project is the result of the foresight of the late Byron D. and Henry Hamlin of Smethport who purchased the huge Louisiana forest acreage before the Civil War, and who, with the Goodyears of Buffalo, in later years started the Bogalusa development.

H. H. Redfield and O. J. Hamlin of Smethport are prominent executives of the Great Southern Lumber Co. and of the New Orleans and Great Northern railroad, and many Smethport people own stock in the two companies.

The National Geographic Magazine article describes progress of the great reforestation program being carried on by the Great Southern Lumber Co., the start of which was described by the Democrat several years ago on information given this newspaper by H. H. Redfield, director of the company.

As stated in the Democrat at that time, the reforestation program is destined to make the Bogalusa operations perpetual by scientific planting of young trees in the wake of the timber cutting operations.

The plan has been closely copied after the program followed at a great lumbering operation in Norway where one company has continuously operated on one great timber tract for several centries.

Charles Goodyear of Buffalo, an officer of the Great Southern Lumber Company, spent considerable time in Norway making a thorough study of the Norwegian company's interesting reforestation achievement.

The company established a great tree nursery at Bogalusa in 1927 and during 1928-29 slash pine seedlings to the number of 6,000,000 were set out on 7000 acres of cut-over forest land. Trees are planted 900 to the acre.

The reforestation plan provides for lanes at studied intervals for forest fire prevention, also to be used for hauling away turpentine.

The record of growth of the slash pine seedlings indicates that they will be ready for pulpwood in from 15 to 20 years and will be full-grown trees, ready to yield lumber in 40 years. The long-leaf pine variety will take from 10 to 20 years longer to mature.

The Great Southern Lumber Co. mill at Bogalusa shares with a similar one in the State of Washington the distinction of being one of the world's two largest sawmills. It has a capacity of three-quarters of a million feet of sawed lumber each day.

Ordinarily the company's mill would have exhausted the vast timber tract by 1940, but to keep the mill going and at the same time allow the reforestation program to catch up with sawing operations to make the project perpetual, the company operates a fleet of five steamships which bring squared redwood logs from California, via the Panama Canal, to be sawed at the Bogalusa mill.

The Bogalusa timber tract of the Great Southern Lumber Co. consists of half a million acres - nearly as large as the surface of the state of Rhode Island.

In addition to the huge sawmill, the company operates a pulp mill which utilizes all refuse to manufacture kraft wrapping paper. Other waste is consumed as boiler fuel.

The National Geographic article was accompanied by several illustrations of the Bogalusa plant, one of the reforestation plantings, one of the pulp mill and one of the great refuse burner which has not been used since 1924.

On the side of the huge burner, left standing as a monument to wasteful methods is painted the following:

"Bogalusa Plant of the Great Southern Lumber CO. Refuse Burner. Born Oct. 1, 1908. Died July 4, 1924. Every day during my life of sixteen years I consumed daily 560 cords of waste materials or a total of 2,688,00 cords. I cost $75,000 but my fire has destroyed $1,344,000 worth of what was formerly considered waste. The complete utilization of the sawmill refuse in the manufacture of paper has my fire forever extinguished."

Conservation is the watch-word of the Great Southern Lumber Co.

Bogalusa Refuse Burner. Photo Credit: The Bogalusa Story by C.W. Goodyear