The Gilmer Mirror from Gilmer, Texas • Page 59

Here's Condition In Upshur County For Year of 1877 In 1H77, Hit' your this newspaper was started, Rutherford B. Hayes wiis inaugurated President of the United States. The election had to be settled in Congress and Hayes won the decision over Tildcn, 185 to 184. Wm. A.

Wheeler was declared Vice-President. Lt. Governor R. B. Hubbard had become Governor of Texas, after Richard Coke had resigned, December 1876 following his election as United States Senator.

Governor Hubbard was from Tyler. In 1877 Thomas A. Edison applied for his first patent on a phonograph, and Henry 0. Flipper became the first Negro fiiaduatc from the U. S.

Military Academy. The New York musical comedy team of Harrigan and Hart presented a number, ''Walking for Dat Cake." The cake walk soon became a popular feature of all minstrel shows. Syncopated cake walk tunes, usually taken from original Negro songs, later developed into the popular "ragtime" music. "Btidcn Baden" was the name of the Kentucky Derby winner in 1877. This wns the third time this race had beer, held at Churchill Downs.

County Still Frontier Settlement Upshur County, in 1877, was still a frontier settlement with much of the county's land area still in virgin forest. Gilmer, the county seat village, had not been incorporated, and the County Judge and Commissioner's Court administered the civic affairs of the village. However, there was a minimum of administrative laws and regulations to enfoi'ce. There were no public utilties of any sort. Everyone had to provide their own water through shallow wells and lights were from coal oil lamps and candles.

There was a post office but not telegraph or telephone. Communication was by letter or messenger. Judge T. J. Lowe, a prominent landowners and merchant was County Judge and W.

Hackler was Sheriff. J. Marshall was County Clerk, and A. B. Denton was County Treasurer.

County Commissioners were M. S. Harris, John Tucker, and M. J. R-agsdale.

This was long before the era of state and federal highways. Every ablebodicd male citizen was required to give a certain number of days to road work. The town and county roads were divided into sections, and the Commissioners' Court appointed overseers for each section. The overseers were to superintend the work and any citizen no fulfilling his share of road work was assessed fine. In 1877 there were some 50 overseers for Upshur County but even so the roads were primitive.

They were deep in sand in dry weather and bogged down in mud in we weather, There were no stock laws so cattle and hogs roamed the streets and were a nuisance on the Court House grounds In 1877 the County Commissioners called for bids to erec a fence around the Court House, "Starting fifty feet from the walls and going entirely around the building at thai distance. Posts shall be of the best grade heart oak set well in the ground and standing four and one half feet above the ground. The bottom plank of the fence shall be a 1x10 ol the best grade heart pine and other planks shall be 1x4 hearl pine. They shall be attached to the posts which must be set not more than 10 feet apart. 10 pennyweight nails shall be used.

Stiles shall be built in front of the entrance dooi on each side of the Court House." This sturdy fence -was built and managed to keep the hogs and stock from the immediate vicinity of the Court House. The Commissioners' Court also ordered the lightning rods on the Court House repaired in 1877. Famous Early Schools Disappeared By this date the famed Looney School and the Parson McClelland School had come and gone. Murry Institute was still operating at Murry League but not by the original founders. Prof, J.

W. Wade-was conducting a school in the county and there were other private schools, but it was five years before Gilmer could boast of the Lone Star Academy. Texas College was just one year old and the University of Texas was six years in the future. TCU was still Add-Ran College at Thorp Spring. Southwestern University at Georgetown and Baylor University at Independence were the two old-established schools in the state.

Gilmer's Belhesda Masonic Lodge was active in 1877 with J. P. Ford as Worshipful Master, but there were no service clubs, women's clubs or Chamber of Commerce in the county. Saloons were widespread throughout the county but in this year "Beat 3" at Simpsonville voted for local option. This was probably the first successful prohibition election held in the county.

Local Options elections were also held in February, 1877 in Coffecville and LaFayette, but the prohibition movement was defeated. Trains would not arrive in Gilmer for three more years, but the Texas and Pacific was running a line across the southern part of the county from Longvicw to Dallas. In 1877 Upshur County was smaller in population and in land area than it had been five years before, The 1870 census recorded a population of 12,039 for Upshur, but by 1880 the census figure was only 10,266. In this period Upshur County had lost about half its land area and much of its population due to the separation of Gregg and Camp counties from Its boundaries. Gregg County was created in 1873 and all of its area north of the Snbinc wns taken from Upshur County.

Camp County wns created in 187-1 and this entire area was separated from Upshur County, However, in spite of Upshur County's seernlhg loss, this entire section was growing in population. By 1880 Greet; County was shown with a population of 8,530 and Camp County with 5,051 so the combined three counties showed substantial increase In population. The Methodist and Baptist churches were both active in Gilmer in 1877 and also had numcrious circuit churches in the county. Gilmer's business district grouped around the Court House square was mostly frame buildings, and some log houses still remained. The square was not completely encircled by business houses until much later dale.

The jail was a small frame house on the court house square, There were not yet any banks in the county but on January 1 of 1877 a county newspaper was started that was to continue to record the local news and county's hap- poninKs (or ninety-one and onc-haU years, and Is still doing so every week under the nftme of "The Gilmer Mirror." -V, Industrial Section August 15, 1968 Page One LOGGING AND SAWMILLS provided the major payrolls and created commercial activity from the early days here. This is typi- cal woods scene, in the early 1900's in Upshur County. STREET SCENE IN RHONESBORO in 1904 shows another type of income, vitally important to Upshur County for about a half century, cotton. In background is store run by Mack Florence for many years. THIS GROUP STANDS BESIDE first trqjl1 fhroll 9h Rhanwboro.

It was 1901 that this lint, which began at a logging railroad, changed its name to the Marshall cV East Ttxos Railroad. Barton standing at Uft. Sawmills, Lumber Give First Payrolls, Develop County Since the first settlers came to these East Texas forests there have always been some type of sawmills and lumbering operations. The first mills were crude affairs with teams of mules or oxen doing the heavy work, such as dragging the huge logs out of the woods to the clearing where the sawmill was set up. The mill was usually located near a stream or spring to insure a water supply.

D. T. Loyd's "History of Upshur County" states that in 1882 there were 18 sawmills in Upshur County and by 1907 there were 90. Before this area was settled the entire countryside was covered with magnificent stands of I virgin pine, and forests with oak, hickory, walnut and gum. By the 1890 period several big operators had moved into this section and Upshur County had become widely known as a "lumbering" county.

In 1895 the Commercial Lumber Company which was already established here was buying right-of-way to establish a tramline railway to its numerous country mills. The big mill was located on the northern edge of Gilmer, out Titus Street about where the Gilmer Fertilizer Co. is now. Upshur County deed records for the years of 1895, '86 and on for a period of more than ten years show purchases of timber for their mills. A.

L. Clark was the major stockholder in the company and the president. John A. Bonner, brother-in-law of the late C. T.

Crosby; was the Gilmer manager. "The Wild and Uncultivated Land" Right-of-way deeds for the Commercial Lumber Company's tram railroad give one an idea of the condition of lural Upshur County at the turn of the century. One deed from J. L. and P.

C. Covin read "a fifty foot wide strip through all the wild and uncultivated land we might own in eastern Upshur County." The country was so unsettled they did not even bother to survey the land. By 1901 the Texas Southern Railway bought the right- of-way from the Commercial Lumber Company and operated the logging trains through Upshur -and Harrison Counties. The Texas Southern was the forerunner of the Marshall and East Texas Railroad. The Commercial Lumber, Company suffered a disastrous fire in their Gilmer mill in 1907'and by 1909 the company closed out here and moved'to'Glenwood, where they operated as the A.

L. Clark Lumber Co. The Gilmer operation had been that it caused a falling off of business or "depression" for a time after they moved. It put many hands out of work and.a large number of the employees moved to Arkansas with them. Dr.

the company doctor, berger, both owning Montgomery Street homes, moved with them as did John A. Bonner, Mr. and Mrs. Will McClelland, Stewart Roberts, Wm. Mayer, C.

T. Crosby, J. W. Marshall as well as scores of white and colored mill hands, and that well-known colored citizen, Felton Criddle. The story is told that Glenwood, arid surrounding area had never had any colored residents until the Clark Lumber moved in.

At first they were antagonistic to the colored newcomers and the company had to let their colored help sleep in the commissary under guard each night until the Arkansas folk decided to accept them or at least tolerate them. T. Crosby and J. W. Marshall, who ran the company commissary, returned to Gilmer after about five or six years in Arkansas, and so did Felton Criddle, but most of the others working for the lumber company stayed on in Arkansas or moved to other places.

Mr. Sullenberger moved back to Tyler and was one of the first stockholders the Gilmer Cotton Oil Mill. Other companies carrying on extensive sawmill operations in this county were the Tyler Star Lumber Company, the Davis Lumber near Bettie, and the Waterman Lumber Co. First to Ship on Railroad In the western part of Upshur County William Rhone was operating a mill and was one of the first to ship lumber on the Marshall and East Texas Railway so the railroad officials named the community Rhonesboro. After the train gave transportation to this area, numerous sawmills established operations in and near Rhonesboro.

The sawmill operators were: Barton and Smith, Conn and Watkins, Nolan, Connally, Swann, Mack and F. Florence, Beavers and Meek, Dacus, James, P. K. Williams Roger and J. O.

Scbrum, Joe Stivers, Whitter, Waterman and McWhorter. Rhonesboro became such an important lumber shipping point that a thriving town grew up there including several stores, hotels, bank, cotton yard, gin, drug store barber shop, livery stable, pottery, saloons, market and many other enterprises. After the timber was all cut the mills closed down and the railroad closed down too in P. K. Williams started a mill near Rosewood about 1907 and continued this operation until he took time out to volunteer and serve in World War I.

He was commissioned a Lieutenant and sent to France where he was promoted to a Captain. On his return from the service he took back his mill, but it soon burned and he started another mill near Rhonesboro which he operated for some ton years. In commenting on the quality of the timber in the early part of this century Mr. Williams said he had processed logs big enough to cut 3x10 bridge timbers twenty feet long. He shipped them to road builders as far away as Greenville.

He also cut 6x8 heart pine sills for home building. Mr. Williams also said that mill owners liked to use ox teams for hauling as they were better to work in the woods and sandy soil thn mules. Some mills still try to use them, he said. The driver of the ox-teams had to be a real impresario, knowing just how to handle the oxen and "talk" to them as he drove them.

Other early mill operators in Upshur County were R. O. White and M. M. Morris.

Sawmills were also operated in Gilmer after the Commercial Lumber Company left here. B. L. Lcc operated a mill and so did J. C.

Miller. D. Green Was Big Sandy Operator Another longtime operator in the county was W. D. Green of Big Sandy.

Mr. Green started out in 1IM with a tractor operated mill which he moved from to plncc, then from 1932 until 1934 his mill was on Pearl Street in Big Sandy. In 1934 he started oporottofl of a large mill at the north end of Big Sandy Lnko corn- See SAWMILLS and LUMBERING, 1.