The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1874-10-16
FLORIDA LUMBER TRADE.
Its Increasing Importance and Rapid
Development.

Its Increasing Importance and Rapid
Development.
OF the industries of the south next
in Importance to the cotton-manufao-
ture is the lumber business-the pine
regions of the southern seaboard now
furnishing immense supplies for north
ern and foreign consumption, as well as
for the south herself. Years ago, tn
hardly lumbermen from Canada and
Maine were in the habit of making
annual winter raids on the southern
coast, penetrating often into the inte-
nor, and monopolizing the profits of
this trade. But, since the war, south
ern men, aided bv northern means, have
turned their attention to this source of
wealth, and numerous immense saw
mills, with new and improvad machine
ry, have been erected, and the some
what harsh music If the saw has awak-
ened the echoes in sylvan solitudes hith-
erto resoundipg only the cries of the
wild animals that peopled them.
Along the coasts of Georgia, Alabama,
and Florida, both the axes and the saw
mills are now busy, annually sending
forth many millions of feet of hewn and
sawn lumber and timber to the utter
most ends of the earth.
A brief outline of what is doing in
this way at one point alone, in the re-
mote region of Pensacola and Perdido
bay, in West Florida, will give the for
eign reader faint idea of the rapid
growth and great proportions this com
paratively new southern industry is at
tanning.
The writer visited Perdido bay last
summer. A narrow-gauge railway ten
miles long connects this land-locked
bay with the fine harbor of Pensacola,
which in the autumn and winter season
is now filled with lumber vessels of all
nationalities while Pensacola, which
has literally arisen from its ashes since
the war, is now rapidly becoming q
thriving little city from the effects of
this trade. For two years succeeding
burned down, was deserted, weeds grew
up in her streets, and the fox and wild
turkey abode there. Then the scattered
fugitives began to return, and some of
the more energetic among them COM
menced rebuilding the saw-mills which
had been destroyed, and from these
small seeds sprang up the trade which
now already exports values to the
amount of upward of two million dol
lars per annum. Perdido Cor LOST bay,
so called from its having no navigable
outlet, is now the centre of a great
movement in timber. cutting, and on its
banks, four years since solitary in saw
age wildness, are now six large saw
mills, and two additional monster ones
in course of construction. In size, cost,
and perfection of machinery, these new
saw-mills are unsurpassed anywhere.
Their enterprising owners, northwestern
men, have bought principality, in ex-
tent two hundred thousand acres, from
the state of Alabama, lying on the op
posite side of Perdido bay, that being
the boundary between Florida and Ala
bama, and will conduct operations on
grand scale. The consequence of this
new industry has liaI>ep Iready to treble
the trade and, to Gl,nfse OF Pensacola,
with an ever+it klReeAst tendency. Her
shipping lists forFIf,o year before last
showed one hunhe03 and two ships,
eleven hundred and twenty-three barks,
seventy-five brigs, and three hundred
schooners, all due to the lumber -busi-
ness, since Pensacola is not a cotton
port, owinp to its location. 1t was con-
fidently anticipated that the trade would
be doubled during the year Just passed.
The bav of Perdido is we'll worthy of
visit by tourist or traveller, for its nat
ural beauties are very great. It's mir
ror-like expanse of upruffled water,
Iand-locked, crescent shaped, with in
dented curves, is fringed on its farther
40 Ix-o Iarlr Of T1Jnno NTH fhnI1s
sombre green foliage and straight shafts
shooting thirty feet into the air without
limb below. The primeval forest, m
disturbed as vet by the axe, and with
out human habitations, alone is visible.
The bay. not being navigable, has no
craft of any kind on its broad bosom
save miniature steamer employed for
transporting RATS of logs over its shall
low surface.
But looking around you, as you stand
on the nearer side, you observe the
marks of civilization and progress in
the mills, plying ceaselessly their busy
saws, the piles of hewn and sawn timber,
and the growing village and workmen's
houses constituting q respectable set
I'll, ment, within the limits of which
liquor is forbidden to be sold by the
restrictive law, self-impcsed in this new
Maine in the southern wilderness. But
eight years since this spot was wilder
ness without a single habitation, the
haunt of the bear and the panther.
The following extract from an address
recently delivered on the completion of
a railroad to it in 1872, by Mr.. Camp
bell, a leading lawyer of Pensacola,
draws a curious picture of a locality in
the heart of a region discovered by
Ponce de Leon three centuries ago, and
within six miles of one of the Oldest
settlements in the state:
"In the dawn of this enterprise,
when Millview was q wilderness, and the
track of the panther was still on its soil,
some men might have been seen trying
to finish by night cabin they had COM
menced to build in the morning. Near
by was woman seated on log, pa
tiently awaiting the completion of the
shelter under which she was, through
her thrift, smiles, and counsels, to make
glad the heart of her husband. That
husband is my friend DIR. Mclean. the
naill-pioneer of Perdido, who, thus
cheered and sustained, is, after many
trials, now on the verge of affluence,
and that woman, his wife, lady who
honors me by permitting me to call her
my friend"
This is no picture of the earlier set
tlement, but dates back eight years
Magazine.
Warming voice