The Frost Lumber Companies, or rather, the Frost-Trigg Lumber Co. and, later, the Frost-Johnson Lumber Co., was founded by Enoch Wesley Frost, a resident and native of Arkansas.
Arkansas is a state in the southern region of the United States, home to over 3 million people as of 2018. Its name is of Siouan derivation from the language of the Osage denoting their related kin, the Quapaw Indians. The state's diverse geography ranges from the mountainous regions of the Ozark and the Ouachita Mountains, which make up the U.S. Interior Highlands, to the densely forested land in the south known as the Arkansas Timberlands, to the eastern lowlands along the Mississippi River and the Arkansas Delta.
Enoch W. Frost began lumbering with a small portable sawmill as early as 1881 in the region around Texarkana. He expanded his operations and became associated with a group who formed the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company in 1897. In 1907, Edwin Ambrose Frost, son of Enoch, in conjunction with Clarence D. Johnson, organized the Frost-Johnson Lumber Company which merged with Frost-Trigg. The company was developed by E. A. into a complex lumber operation and was for a time the largest lumber manufacturer in Northeast Texas and Northwest Louisiana. Clarence D. Johnson, who was born in New York, came south and began his sawmill career working as a trimmer in a Louisiana mill in 1885. Johnson worked his way up through the mill and eventually became the first vice-president of the Frost-Johnson Lumber Company.
A sawmill or lumber mill is a facility where logs are cut into lumber. Modern saw mills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes. The "portable" saw mill is iconic and of simple operation—the logs lay flat on a steel bed and the motorized saw cuts the log horizontally along the length of the bed, by the operator manually pushing the saw. The most basic kind of saw mill consists of a chainsaw and a customized jig, with similar horizontal operation.
Texas is the second largest state in the United States by both area and population. Geographically located in the South Central region of the country, Texas shares borders with the U.S. states of Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the west, and the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas to the southwest, while the Gulf of Mexico is to the southeast.
Louisiana is a state in the Deep South region of the South Central United States. It is the 31st most extensive and the 25th most populous of the 50 United States. Louisiana is bordered by the state of Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, Mississippi to the east, and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. A large part of its eastern boundary is demarcated by the Mississippi River. Louisiana is the only U.S. state with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are equivalent to counties. The state's capital is Baton Rouge, and its largest city is New Orleans.
In 1910 Frost-Johnson further expanded with the purchase of the Hayward mill and more than 50,000 acres (200km²) of pinelands in Nacogdoches and adjoining counties, together with the Nacogdoches and Southeastern Railroad. Frost Johnson became Frost Lumber Industries in 1925 and three years later acquired another major Texas property with the purchase of the Waterman Lumber Company. With the death of E. A. Frost in 1950, the stockholders voted in 1952 to sell to Olin Industries who shortly thereafter sold to the International Paper Company.
The Olin Corporation is an American manufacturer of ammunition, chlorine, and sodium hydroxide. Based in Clayton, Missouri, it traces its roots to two companies, both founded in 1892: Franklin W. Olin's "Equitable Powder Company" and the "Mathieson Alkali Works". After being headquartered for many years in Stamford, Connecticut, it is now headquartered in Clayton, Missouri.
The International Paper Company is an American pulp and paper company, the largest such company in the world. It has approximately 56,000 employees, and is headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee.
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