The forests in the U.S. state of Texas have been an important resource since its earliest days and have played a major role in the state's history. The vast woodlands of the region, home to many varieties of wildlife before Europeans first showed up, provided economic opportunities for early settlers. They continue to play an important role economically and environmentally in the state.
The densest forest lands lie in the eastern part of the state in the Piney Woods region. In particular the Big Thicket region, just north of Houston and Beaumont, has historically been home to the densest woodlands. The Big Thicket was mostly uninhabited until heavy settlement from the U.S. began in the mid-19th century, and was even used as a refuge by runaway slaves and other fugitives. The Rio Grande Valley in South Texas was home to a large palm tree forest when Spaniards first arrived, though today very little of it remains.
One of the first steam sawmills in Texas was planned in 1829 in what is now modern Houston. After the Texas Revolution lumber production increased steadily such that by 1860 there were reportedly 200 saw mills in the state. The construction of railroads throughout the eastern part of the state led to boom in lumber production starting in the 1880s. The following 50-year period in which the Texas timber industry flourished came to be known as the "bonanza era". Though the growth of the industry provided significant economic benefits to Texas, a lack of regulation allowed business owners to exploit many individuals including appropriating private property and forcing laborers to accept poor working conditions and low wages.
By the start of the 20th century timber was one of the leading economic engines of Texas and had become the state's largest manufacturing enterprise. Lumber barons, such as John Henry Kirby, were among the wealthiest people in the state. By 1907 Texas was the third largest lumber producer in the United States.[1][2] The subsequent clearing of fields for oil exploration and the related demand for lumber through the first half of the 20th century destroyed much of the remaining forest lands in the state. By the 1920s lumber production was in decline and the onset of the Great Depression devastated the already flagging industry.
In recent times preservation efforts, such as the creation of the Texas Big Thicket National Preserve in 1974, have helped to stabilize parts of the Texas woodlands. As of 1999[update] Texas remains in the top ten timber producing states in the United States.[3]
Ecological patterns
Annual precipitation across Texas ranges from more than 50 inches (1,300mm) in the east to less than 5 inches (130mm) in the west.
The climate in Texas varies greatly across the state. Humid, rain-soaked swamps lie toward the east and desert lands lie in the far west. Woodlands, grasslands, brushland, and other ecological regions can be found in between and around the state. A prominent climatic feature of Texas is a dry line that runs north-south through its center. This line, though not entirely fixed in its location, represents a point east of which relatively moist air from the Gulf of Mexico flows freely, and west of which the drier air from the Mexican deserts prevails. The forest lands, of course, mostly lie to the east of this line though pockets of woodland can be found in the mountains to the west. Texas is periodically subjected to extreme droughts that can last several years, even as much as a decade. The most severe example in modern history was the 1950s drought that reshaped the state's economy. These drought periods are known to dramatically reduce the forests. The severe drought of 2011, for example, is estimated to have killed between two and ten percent of the state's trees.[4]
Texas forest lands can be divided into six major regions: the Big Thicket, the Piney Woods, the Gulf Coast, the Edwards Plateau, the lower Rio Grande Valley, and the Trans-Pecos mountain forests.[5]East Texas is home to the Piney Woods, a vast region extending from Texas through parts of Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana. These woodlands feature many varieties of pine as well as hardwood varieties including magnolia, American Sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua), and elms (Ulmus spp.).[6] The Big Thicket is the southern portion of this region, and has historically been the most densely wooded part of the state, acting as a natural divide between Southeast Texas and coastal Louisiana. The Texas coastal region has more sparse tree growth but still contains many varieties including Southern Live Oak (Quercus virginiana), mesquite (Prosopis spp.), and Texas Persimmon (Diospyros texana).[7] The Edwards Plateau region of Central Texas contains woodlands featuring Ashe Juniper (Juniperus ashei), Texas Live Oak (Quercus fusiformis), and Honey Mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa).[8] The lower Rio Grande Valley has historically been home to a large semitropical forest of Mexican Palmetto (Sabal mexicana).[9] Though West Texas is mostly grasslands and desert, mountainous areas in the Trans-Pecos portion, such as the Guadalupe Mountains, contain oases of forest lands featuring Bigtooth Maple (Acer grandidentatum), Velvet Ash (Fraxinus velutina), Grey Oak (Quercus grisea), and similar tree species.[10]
Additional pockets of forest lands include the Cross Timbers areas of North Texas in the vicinity of the Dallas – Fort Worth metroplex, the Lost Pines Forest of Central Texas, as well as other areas throughout the savanna and blackland prairies that lie to the west of the Piney Woods and the coastal areas. For its part the Cross Timbers region, which straddles Texas and Oklahoma, though relatively narrow, was once dense enough to have been considered a natural barrier.[11] Though these woodland areas have never been a major source of lumber they have nevertheless provided firewood as well as wood for poles, railroad construction and other limited uses.[12] Patches of original oak and hickory woodland remain in the ranchlands of eastern Texas, west of the Piney Woods, and these have been described as the East Central Texas forestsecoregion.
Early Texas and the Republic of Texas
Traditional limits of the Big Thicket region prior to the Texas Revolution. Deforestation has dramatically reduced its size.
The Big Thicket forest region once covered more than 2million acres (8,100km2) in east Texas.[14] The Spaniards, who once ruled the region, defined its boundaries in the north as El Camino Real de los Tejas / Old San Antonio Road, a trail system that ran from Central Texas to Nacogdoches; in the south as La Bahia Road or Atascosito Road, a trail that ran from southwest Louisiana into southeast Texas west of Galveston Bay; to the west by the Brazos River; and to the east by the Sabine River.[13] This thickly wooded area proved to be a natural barrier against settlement. It had remained largely uninhabited even by Native Americans until the 19th century.[14]
In the Rio Grande Valley a large forest of Mexican Palmetto (Sabal mexicana) extended from the coast to approximately 80 miles (130km) inland as late as 1852. Spanish explorer Alonzo Alvarez de Pineda, in fact, named the river Río de las Palmas (Palm River) in 1519 because of the forest that surrounded it.[9]
When Europeans first arrived in east Texas the Hasinai, Bidai, and Akokisa tribes lived at the fringes of the Big Thicket lands. These predominantly agriculture-based peoples avoided settlement in the forests primarily because the sandy soils of these forest lands were much less fertile than the clay-rich soils outside the dense forests.[15]
During the early 19th century the gradual westward migration of settlers in North America made the forests of east Texas a popular refuge for runaway slaves and fugitives from justice in the United States.[14]
One of the first steam sawmills in Texas was planned in 1829 by John Richardson Harris, founder of Harrisburg (part of modern Houston). It operated until at least 1833.[1] After the Texas Revolution, the influx of settlers quickly increased demand for lumber. Sawmills were constructed on the coast in locations such as Galveston, Houston, and Beaumont. As settlement moved further inland new mills were constructed at towns from Nacodoches to Bastrop.[1]
The Lost Pines Forest near Bastrop, the westernmost stand of pine trees in the state, became an important source of lumber for Central Texas.[16][17]
Following the annexation of Texas by the United States, the timber industry in the state continued to develop. By 1860 there were reportedly 200 saw mills in the state.[18] The value of lumber products exceeded US$1.75million annually (US$59.3million in today's terms).[1]
In Central Texas the forest lands became depleted much faster than in the East. Over the course of the mid-19th century oak lumber was becoming so scarce in many areas that masonry rapidly began to replace wood construction in many communities.[19]
Even as late as 1870 the major forests of East Texas were largely pristine with some trees growing to more than 150 feet (46m) in height and more than 5 feet (1.5m) in diameter. This began to change rapidly in the 1880s as railroad lines were completed across the state.[1] In 1877 Pennsylvania entrepreneurs Henry J. Lutcher and G. Bedell Moore established a major mill in Orange, creating the largest and most modern operation in the state. The timber industry entered what was known as the "bonanza era" as lumber plants and logging roads criss-crossed the forests.[1] Plant owners built company towns, including Camden, Kirbyville and Diboll, to attract employees. Working conditions for timber workers was harsh and dangerous. Work days averaged 11 hours and pay was typically between US$1.50 to US$2.50 per day (US$55 to US$92 in today's terms).[1] In many cases the owners established a nearly feudal structure of control exercising near absolute authority over the towns and their residents.[20]
In the late 19th century a new technology known as the skidder was introduced to the Texas logging industry. The skidder consisted of a railway car with a crane assembly and long cables that dragged logs from the forest after they were felled. The dragging process was tremendously destructive to the forests in which they were used and dramatically hastened the rate at which forests were cleared, both because of its efficiency at extracting logs and because of the incidental damage to the flora.[21]
A significant consequence of the growth of the lumber industry was the taking of land from families that had once owned it. Because of "use and possession" laws in force in Texas at that time, lumber barons flush with cash from Northern investors were able to seize lands belonging to local families, often property that had been in the families for generations.[22]
East Texas farmer John Henry Kirby gradually acquired multiple mills eventually consolidating them in 1901 as the Kirby Lumber Company, the state's largest at the turn of the 20th century. Kirby would go on to be referred to as the "Prince of Pines" by the press in Texas.[1]
By the start of the 20th century agriculture (particularly cotton), timber, and ranching were the leading economic engines of Texas.[23][24] Lumber production became the largest manufacturing enterprise in the state, and the industry continued to grow in the early years of the century. Production grew from 300million board feet (710,000m3) annually in 1879 to 2,250million board feet (5,300,000m3) in 1907, the maximum the state has ever produced. Texas became the third leading lumber-producing state in the U.S.[1][2]World War I only increased this demand as pine-built ships were common at this time.[1]
The early 20th century saw the expansion of large lumber companies from outside Texas into the state. Long-Bell Lumber Company, a Kansas-based company (now part of International Paper), established a subsidiary in Lufkin, Texas in 1905 with further expansion thereafter.[25] Other outside companies came as well with many following a cut-out-and-get-out policy, harvesting all available resources in an area and then abandoning it completely.[1] Even at the start of the 20th century it was becoming clear that the rate at which the Piney Woods were being harvested was unsustainable. In 1904 a U.S. forester asserted that, given logging practices at that time, the virgin forests would likely not last more than two decades.[21]
Southern Pine Lumber Company sawmill and millpond, circa 1907
In 1901 the Gladys City Oil, Gas, and Manufacturing Company struck oil at Spindletop Hill, near Beaumont, Texas. Though petroleum extraction had existed in Texas before this strike, Spindletop was by far the most productive well in world history. This event launched an era of economic growth that was unparalleled in the state's history.[26] The subsequent clearing of fields for oil exploration and the related demand for lumber through the first half of the 20th century destroyed much of the remaining forest lands in the state.[1][27][28]
By the end of World War I demand for timber was declining.[1] The Texas timber industry as a whole had, in fact, already peaked in 1907–1908.[29] By the 1920s, the forest lands in Texas had become severely depleted and most of the virgin pine had been cut.[1][28] The lumber industry slowed substantially as lumber companies, whose properties were largely exhausted of timber, slowed or halted operations. Long-Bell and other lumber companies abandoned Texas and moved on to the Pacific coast and other areas of the country.[21] By 1932, during the Great Depression, production in Texas had fallen to 350million board feet (830,000m3). The 50-year bonanza era had come to a close, with approximately 18million acres (73,000km2) of forest having been cut by lumber interests.[1]
Boom periods of the four major industries that built the early Texas economy
In the south, immigration and development in the Rio Grande Valley led to clearing of the palm-tree forests for agriculture. By the 1930s the once extensive forests in the valley had been reduced to small tracts around Brownsville.[30]
Efforts to preserve what remained of the forests began to emerge. The East Texas Big Thicket Association was formed in the 1920s to preserve what little remained of the Big Thicket. Though its impact was limited it demonstrated increasing concern about the woodlands.[31] In 1924 the state forester E. O. Siecke succeeded in establishing the first state forest in Texas (named E. O. Siecke State Forest in 1951). The forest consisted of 1,702 acres (6.9km2) near Kirbyville. By 1925 additional state forest lands had been acquired in Cherokee and Montgomery Counties.[32]
In 1930 the Angelina County Lumber Company planted 200,000 pine seedlings representing one of the first significant efforts at reforestation in the state.[33] In 1933 the Texas legislature authorized the purchase of specific lands for the National Forest system, thus creating Angelina, Davy Crockett, Sam Houston, and Sabine National Forests. These lands were largely areas that had been cut over and cleared by lumber interests. The United States Forest Service and the Texas Forest Service began efforts to re-establish forests on these and other properties around the state.[1]
Recent times
In 1944 a tree farm program was started in Texas following the model set forth by the state of Alabama. Under the sponsorship of various public and private organizations, including the Texas Forest Service and the East Texas Chamber of Commerce, the program established training and certification criteria that encourage sustainable harvesting practices and protect the local wildlife and ecology.[34]
The timber industry in Texas gradually began to blossom again in the mid-20th century as new technological developments, including log debarkers and pine-based plywood, made it possible to use more of each individual tree and thus made them more valuable. By 1982, lumber producers ranked among the top manufacturing businesses in the state.[1]
In 1974 the Texas Big Thicket National Preserve of 84,550 acres (342.2km2) was created by Congress. The preserve actually consists of 12 distinct units of forest land that are protected from lumbering activities.[13] These and other preservation efforts have helped to stabilize parts of the Texas woodlands.[35]
Tree farm certifications grew steadily in the mid-20th century. By 1984 there were 2,510 certified, privately owned farms in the state encompassing more than 4million acres (16,000km2) of timberland, mostly in East Texas.[34]
In 1994 the national forests alone in Texas produced 93.8million board feet (221,000m3) of timber, providing US$73.1million (US$150million in today's terms) in income and 2,098 jobs.[36] In 1992 the timber companies in the state produced more than 1,250million board feet (2,900,000m3) and in 1997 they produced more than 1,370million board feet (3,200,000m3). As of 1999[update] Texas was the tenth largest timber producing state in the nation.[3] The primary wood product is the Southern yellow pine largely supplying the housing sector in the state.[3] Cities like Nacogdoches, Lufkin, Beaumont, and Marshall still have large lumber firms that make up a substantial portion of their economies.
As of 2010[update] the World Wide Fund for Nature considers the Piney Woods region to be one of the critically endangered ecoregions of the United States.[37]
Henry J. Lutcher and G. Bedell Moore came to the town of Orange in 1877 to enter the fledgling Texas lumber industry. They established the first large-scale milling operation in the state, introduced the use of advanced technology, and set quality standards that would be followed by the lumber industry going forward.[1] Businessmen including Joseph H. Kurth, Thomas L. L. Temple, and W. T. Carter established lumber dynasties that controlled vast regions of the state.[1][44]
John H. Kirby is considered by some to be the first of the great lumber barons of Texas. He is also regarded as the first major industrialist of the state.[43] Beginning his career as a country lawyer in East Texas, Kirby organized investors in Boston and New York in the 1880s to buy timber land in Texas and start numerous lumber operations. In 1901 he took full control of all of these operations forming the Kirby Lumber Company, the largest in the state and, arguably, the largest in all of the southern United States. Kirby, in fact, once controlled the largest area of pine in the world.[43]
Some lumber barons, including Kirby, transformed themselves into oil barons as the bonanza era of lumber came to a close and the oil boom took hold in the 1920s and 1930s.[45]
Preservationists
In 1889 the U.S. Bureau of Forestry chief, B. E. Fernow, enlisted the help of Temple, Texas banker W. Goodrich Jones to conduct a survey of the East Texas forests. Jones had knowledge of forestry techniques from his youth in the Black Forest of Germany. He went on to establish the Texas Forest Association in 1914, and lobbied the local lumber companies and the state legislature leading to the establishment of the Texas Forest Service in 1915.[40] Jones came to be known as the Father of Forestry in Texas.[40][46]
In 1927 R. E. Jackson, a railroad conductor who traveled through the East Texas forests regularly, formed the East Texas Big Thicket Association. The group's explicit purpose was to preserve 400,000 acres (1,600km2) of the forest and save it from destruction.[14] The group suffered for lack of funds, and the demands for resources during World War II nullified most of its influence.[31]
↑ Long, Christopher (1 November 1994). "Angelina County Lumber Company". Handbook of Texas. Texas State Historical Association. Retrieved 21 April 2010.
The Neches River begins in Van Zandt County west of Rhine Lake and flows for 416 miles (669 km) through the piney woods of east Texas, defining the boundaries of 14 counties on its way to its mouth on Sabine Lake near the Rainbow Bridge. Two major reservoirs, Lake Palestine and B. A. Steinhagen Reservoir are located on the Neches. The Angelina River is a major tributary with its confluence at the north of Lake B. A. Steinhagen. Tributaries to the south include Village Creek and Pine Island Bayou, draining much of the Big Thicket region, both joining the Neches a few miles north of Beaumont. Towns and cities located along the river including Tyler, Lufkin, and Silsbee, although significant portions of the Neches River are undeveloped and flow through protected natural lands. In contrast, the lower 40 miles of the river are a major shipping channel, highly industrialized, with a number of cities and towns concentrated in the area including Beaumont, Vidor, Port Neches, Nederland, Groves, and Port Arthur.
Kountze is a city in and the county seat of Hardin County, Texas, United States. The population was 1,981 at the 2020 census. The city is part of the Beaumont–Port Arthur Metropolitan Statistical Area.
East Texas is a broadly defined cultural, geographic, and ecological region in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Texas that comprises most of 41 counties. It is primarily divided into Northeast and Southeast Texas. Most of the region consists of the Piney Woods ecoregion. East Texas can sometimes be defined only as the Piney Woods. At the fringes, towards Central Texas, the forests expand outward toward sparser trees and eventually into open plains.
The Piney Woods is a temperate coniferous forest terrestrial ecoregion in the Southern United States covering 54,400 square miles (141,000 km2) of East Texas, southern Arkansas, western Louisiana, and southeastern Oklahoma. These coniferous forests are dominated by several species of pine as well as hardwoods including hickory and oak. Historically the most dense part of this forest region was the Big Thicket though the lumber industry dramatically reduced the forest concentration in this area and throughout the Piney Woods during the 19th and 20th centuries. The World Wide Fund for Nature considers the Piney Woods to be one of the critically endangered ecoregions of the United States. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines most of this ecoregion as the South Central Plains.
The Big Thicket is the name given to a somewhat imprecise region of a heavily forested area of Southeast Texas in the United States. This area represents a portion of the mixed pine-hardwood forests or "Piney Woods" of the Southeast US. The National Park Service established the Big Thicket National Preserve (BTNP) within the region in 1974 and it is recognized as a biosphere reserve by UNESCO. Although the diversity of animals in the area is high for a temperate zone with over 500 vertebrates, it is the complex mosaic of ecosystems and plant diversity that is particularly remarkable. Biologists have identified at least eight, and up to eleven, ecosystems in the Big Thicket area. More than 160 species of trees and shrubs, 800 herbs and vines, and 340 types of grasses are known to occur in the Big Thicket, and estimates as high as over 1000 flowering plant species and 200 trees and shrubs have been made, plus ferns, carnivorous plants, and more. The Big Thicket has historically been the most dense forest region in Texas.
Articles on forestry topics include:.
Davy Crockett National Forest in Kennard, Texas is off U.S. Highway 69 lying west of Lufkin, Texas and east of Crockett. It is administered by the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service local headquarters in Lufkin. There are local ranger district offices located in Ratcliff.
John Henry Kirby was an American businessman whose ventures made him the largest lumber manufacturer in Texas and the Southern United States. In addition to serving two terms in the Texas Legislature, he also established the Kirby Petroleum Company. With his successful reputation, he was known by his business peers as "The Prince of the Pines" and "The Father of Industrial Texas". He was also active in anti-union and subversive political activities, cofounding the Southern Committee to uphold the Constitution which supported racism, fascism, and sought to block the reelection of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Kirbyville, Texas, in Jasper County is named after him, as is Kirby Drive and Upper Kirby in Houston.
The American Tree Farm System (ATFS) is the largest and oldest woodland certification system in America. It is internationally recognized by the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification and meets strict third-party certification standards. It is one of three certification systems currently recognized in the United States. ATFS specializes in certifying private forests, primarily those held by individuals and families and currently certifies over 24 million acres (110,000 km²) of forestland. The ATFS Standard for Certification is owned by the American Forest Foundation, a national nonprofit organization focused on promoting sustainable stewardship of America's woodlands and related environmental education through Project Learning Tree.
Logging in the Sierra Nevada arose from the desire for economic growth throughout California. The California Gold Rush created a high demand for timber in housing construction, mining procedures, and building railroads. In the early days, harvesting of forests were unregulated and within the first 20 years after the gold rush, a third of the timber in the Sierra Nevada was logged. Concern for the forests rose and created a movement towards conservation at the turn of the 19th century, leading to the creation of state and national parks and forest reserves, bringing forest land under regulation. Between 1900 and 1940, agencies like the U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service regulated the use of the Sierra Nevada's resources. The economy boom after World War II dramatically increased timber production in the Sierras using clear-cutting as the dominant form of logging. In addition, the California Forest Practice Act, or the Z'Berg-Nejedly Forest Practice Act was enacted in 1973 to regulate private timberland holdings.
The Great Southern Lumber Company was chartered in 1902 to harvest and market the virgin longleaf pine forests in southeastern Louisiana and southwestern Mississippi. Bogalusa, Louisiana was developed from the ground up as a company town and was the location for Great Southern Lumber Company's sawmill, which began operation in 1908. Other company interests included a railroad and paper mill. The company ceased operation in 1938, when the supply of virgin pines was depleted. Bogalusa became the site of a paper mill and chemical operations, followed by other industry.
Sun Pass State Forest is one of six state forests managed by the Oregon Department of Forestry. The forest is located 40 miles (64 km) north of Klamath Falls, Oregon near the southeastern corner of Crater Lake National Park. It is the largest single block of Oregon state forestry land east of the Cascade Mountains. The forest is managed as part of the Klamath-Lake District, comprising 21,317 acres (8,627 ha) of the 33,739 state-owned acres within the district.
The Great Texas Coastal Birding Trail is a state-designated system of trails, bird sanctuaries, and nature preserves along the entire length of the Texas Gulf Coast in the United States. As the state of Texas hosts more bird species than any other state in the U.S. the trail system offers some of the most unusual opportunities for bird-watching in the world. The "trail" is actually 43 separate hiking and driving trails that include 308 birding sites. The sites themselves feature a variety of viewing opportunities with boardwalks, observation decks, and other amenities. The trails boast more than 450 bird species. The trail system is managed by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department as part of the Great Texas Wildlife Trails which also include the Heart of Texas Wildlife Trail, the Panhandle Plains Wildlife Trail, and the Prairies and Pineywoods Wildlife Trail.
Forestry in New Zealand has a history starting with European settlement in the 19th century and is now an industry worth seven percent of annual revenue. Much of the original native forest cover was burnt off and logged, however forests have been extensively planted, predominantly with fast-growing cultivars of the Monterey Pine. Wood chips, whole logs, lumber and paper products are exported from New Zealand.
The Lost Pines Forest is a 13-mile (21 km) belt of loblolly pines in the U.S. state of Texas, near the town of Bastrop. The stand of pines is unique in Texas because it is a disjunct population of trees that is more than 100 miles (160 km) separated from, and yet closely genetically related to, the vast expanse of pine trees of the Piney Woods region that covers parts of Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma.
Pine Creek Gorge, sometimes called The Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania, is a 47-mile (76 km) gorge carved into the Allegheny Plateau by Pine Creek in north-central Pennsylvania.
The history of the lumber industry in the United States spans from the precolonial period of British timber speculation, subsequent British colonization, and American development into the twenty-first century. Following the near eradication of domestic timber on the British Isles, the abundance of old-growth forests in the New World posed an attractive alternative to importing choice timber from the Baltic via the narrow straits and channels between Denmark and Sweden. The easily available timber proved an incredible resource to early settlers, with both domestic consumption and overseas trade fueling demand. The industry expanded rapidly as Americans logged their way across the country. In this pursuit, hundreds of thousands of indigenous peoples were displaced, murdered, and enslaved for the purpose of the timber industry.
The Brotherhood of Timber Workers (BTW) (1910–1916) was a union of sawmill workers, farmers, and small business people primarily located in East Texas and West Louisiana, but also had locals in Arkansas (7) and Mississippi (1). The BTW was organized in 1910 by Arthur Lee (A.L) Emerson and Jay Smith as an industrial union. Estimates of membership fall between 20,000 and 35,000 people. Despite being located in the Jim Crow South the union was open to members of all races and women were granted membership in 1912. Roughly half of the membership is believed to have been African American. Members of Brotherhood had their work cut out for themselves, organizing an interracial union during Jim Crow in one of the largest industries in the South. Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi were three of the largest timber producing states in the country during that era.
The wood industry or timber industry is the industry concerned with forestry, logging, timber trade, and the production of primary forest products and wood products and secondary products like wood pulp for the pulp and paper industry. Some of the largest producers are also among the biggest owners of forest. The wood industry has historically been and continues to be an important sector in many economies.
The Louisiana and Texas Lumber War of 1911–1912 was a series of worker strikes that fought for better conditions in sawmills in the Piney Woods of west Louisiana and East Texas. These sawmills underwent attempts to unionize that were opposed by lumber companies and owners. The union workers were known as the Brotherhood of Timber Workers (BTW), a branch of the Lumber Workers Industrial Union (LWIU), which was affiliated with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The Brotherhood tried to recruit mill workers by giving speeches and conducting meetings at various mills. Although they had limited success in Louisiana, the LWIU became very successful from 1917 to 1924.
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