PART N: THE A. E SMITH MILLS AND THE MILLER-VIDOR LUMBER COMPANY

by W. T. Block

In 1884, A. E. Smith built a shingle mill at Orange, and in 1889 his mill was cutting 60,000 shingles daily.155 Orange lumber shipments for 1901 and 1902 reveal that in 1901, the Smith shingle mill shipped 7.1 million cypress shingles, but no lumber, whereas in 1902, Smith also shipped no lumber, but his shingle shipments suddenly dropped to 2.4 million. Hence, the writer's belief is that as Smith's cypress supply disappeared, he decided to convert his mill to sawmilling. As the cypress timber grew ever more scarce, Smith added a sawmill to his shingle mill in 1902, with a daily cut of 50,000. A year or two later, Smith increased the cutting capacity of his sawmill until by 1906, the A. E. Smith sawmill was cutting 125,000 feet daily.156

In 1907, the Miller-Vidor Lumber Company of Galveston bought out the A. E. Smith mills and began manufacturing both lumber and shingles at Orange. The owners organized the Orange Sawmilling Company in January, 1907, with A. W. Miller as president; C. S. Vidor, secretary-treasurer; and C. L. Hannah as mill superintendent at Orange. In January, 1910, the owners discontinued the Orange Sawmilling Company, and operations at the company's four mills at Orange, Beaumont, Milvid, and Timber were reorganized directly under the parent company, Miller-Vidor Lumber Company.157 A company advertisement of 1910 stated the four mills produced a total of 100,000,000 feet of lumber and 50,000,000 shingles annually. The writer believes that all shingle-making activities were consolidated at Beaumont and Orange, rather than at the two yellow pine sawmills at Timber and Milvid, and that Miller-Vidor made pine shingles as well as cypress.158 The Orange mills were logged from Miller-Vidor cypress swamps and pine timberlands near Vidor in Western Orange County.159

A fire at Orange at 6 P. M. on August 3, 1910, completely destoyed the Miller-Vidor shingle, saw and planing mill, and the Orange fire company was unable to combat the blaze because of its remote locality at Cypress Bayou. The loss was only partially covered by insurance and exceeded $100,000. About 150 jobs were lost at Orange as well. All that remained were the dry kilns, called "Moran" kilns, which were 30-feet by 50-feet in size, held 25,000 feet, and could be steam-heated to 210 degrees by two boilers installed for that purpose. The Orange plant also saved one rough dry shed and two dressed sheds. Most timber, however, was shipped by water. Export stock was stored in Cypress Bayou until the rafts were ready to be towed to Sabine Pass. "Export saps" were towed in barges to Sabine Pass to be loaded on ocean-going ships.160 C. L. Hanna believed that the plant would probably be rebuilt because of Miller-Vidor's huge reserve of uncut timber.

The Miller-Vidor sawmill at Orange owned one mile of railroad track that connected the mill with the Southern Pacific tracks, and it had switching arrangements with two other railroads. The key plant personnel at Orange included C. L. Hannah, superintendent; Oscar Smith, bookkeeper; Alfred M. McKinley, planing mill foreman; C. F. Balter, sawmill foreman; T. L. Cour, shipping clerk, and T. G. S. Goodwin, river foreman. Although there had been early plans to rebuild at Orange, they never materialized, and thereafter all log trains at Vidor were shipped to the Miller-Vidor sawmill at Beaumont, until it burned on January 6, 1918.161

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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