PART J: THE LEOPOLD MILLER LUMBER INTERESTS

by W. T. Block

Perhaps the reader, having already been introduced to J. W. Link, should become better acquainted with Leopold Miller before the writer continues with Miller-Link Lumber Company. Leopold Miller was an even more successful "Horation Alger" immigrant-figure than Alexander Gilmer was because Miller had suffered no fire losses or ships sunk. Miller came to Orange from Germany in 1881 and quickly became successful as a commission merchant. He soon invested his profits by buying large tracts of timberlands in Jasper, Newton, and north Orange counties. In 1883, Sheriff G. W. Michael built a large shingle mill, which he sold out to Leopold Miller in 1887. One source noted that Miller:123

. . . In 1888 organized the L. Miller Lumber and Shingle Company....For the first few years, the mill was kept sawing shingles....The company erected a large lumber mill alongside the shingle mill, and put in new boilers, a double circular and a band mill, gang edgers (gang saw or "bull edger"), trimmers, steam ...... (racial slur-correct name is log turner), flippers, shotgun feed....This mill made a daily cut of 100,000 feet and....The Lutcher and Moore Lumber Company bought out the L. Miller Lumber and Shingle Company in December, 1901.....

. . . Miller came here in 1881, opened a big department store, and made money fast....In 1887 he bought the shingle mill....and soon ran the daily cut from 75,000....to 250,000....He sold his mill....to the Lutcher and Moore Lumber Company for nearly a half million dollallrs. He still conducts a large mercantile business and has the trade of four large mills....He is president of the Orange and Northwestern Railroad, and vice president of First National Bank.....

A New Orlans editor reported on Leopold Miller in a March, 1889, article, observing that:124

. . . It is said that L. Miller has the latest stock of general goods in the city. His last year's business was $125,000. Mr. Miller is also....one of the partners of Orange Shingle Company and is also interested in the large furnitur house of L. Miller and Company.... The same article added that in 1889 the Orange Shingle Company was the largest shingle mill in Orange with a daily cut of 135,000.

Whereas for years, Miller had been limited to logs floated down the Sabine River to his mill, he dreamed of a railroad that would connect his mill with his large timber holdings in three counties. He soon teamed up in February, 1901, with W. H. Stark, vice president of the Lutcher and Moore Lumber Company, as the chief investors of the Orange and Northwestern Railroad from Orange to Buna (later extended to Newton). However, the same month that the last rails reach Buna, December, 1901, Miller sold out his lumber interests to his partner and others at Lutcher and Moore Lumber Company, which soon became the latter's "Lower Mill" until it burned down on August 1, 1915. After 1901, Miller served for years as president of the Orange and Northwestern, but with his expanse of timberlands still intact, he was only biding his time until he and J. W. Link could organize the Miller-Link Lumber Company in 1905 and buy out the Kirby Lumber Company's "Mill D."125

From W. T. Block, "East Texas Mill Towns and Ghost Towns, Vol I, pp. 245-297, copyrighted 1994, Piney Woods Foundation, Lufkin, TX.

Used with permission.

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