The independent. [volume] (Elizabeth City, N.C.) 1908-1936, 1920-11-19
LARGEST SAW MILL HERE
SHUTS DOWN THIS WEEK
Foreman Blades Mill on Ksnobb's Creek Couldn't
Get Enough Logs to Keep Its Reduced Crew
Busy and Had to Stop Running

lhe Foreman Blades saw mill
on Knobb's Creek and the big
gest mill in recent operation in
Elizabeth City, employing up
wards of 100 1aborers when run
ming full time, and turning out
$4,000 feet of lumber day, shut
down Thursday of this week,
and tied UP a weekly payroll of
thousands of dollars. This saw
mill had been running with a re-
duced force for some time, hav-
ing with the dropping demand
for lumber made decreases of rs
to so cents a day in the wages
of it's employees, and thinned out
as many as it could we'll do with
out.
The Foreman-Blades mill was
idle all day yesterday with not
a wheel turning thruout tt
f)ldllt It's CllS1l1CS SO1d dLlu Will
no smoke pouring from its great
stacks and no darkies singing
around the yard, it presented
lonesome spectacle to all except
the sparrows hopping around
thru the machinery. There was
hardly a dozen men including
foreman and saw filers who had
anything to do.
~This plant, since the shutdown of the
Dare Lumber Company's mill sometime
ago has worked probably the largest
force worked by any saw mill in Eiz-
abeth City. When lumber was greatly
demanded some months ago worked
around a hundred men at the sawmill.
Besides these it employed several hum
dred men in it's various logging opera
tions in the forests of eastern North
Carolina, and kept in operation between
these forests and the mill, two tugboats
and fleet of barges. This same COM
pany operates a planning mill on the
Pasquotank river near Pennsylvania
Avenue which has a capacity of 10000
feet of dressed lumber a day and EN-
ploys about 80 hands. This planning mill
has been making cuts in its force from
time to time recently, and also making
cuts in wages in order to keep as many
men working as possible. It formerly
worked about 80 men, paying from So
to 81 a day, but now the force is only
about half of this number, receiving
1925 to $2.75 day. The planning mill
gets a great part of its unfinished lum-
ber from the sawmill of the same COM
pany. -
While this shutdown comes as a great
surprise to the peopleeof this section, it
is not unusual in view Of the total shut
down of thousands of mills thruout the
country. It is known that the Fore
an-Blades mill has neither been work
ing full time nor full force steadily fo"
several days. 1t is also apparent that
lumber is steadily decreasing in demand
thruout the country in anticipation of
lower wages, and many building opera
tions have been curtailed or suspended
to such an end. The general impress
sion among employees of this mill i.
that things Will pick up In few days
and that the mill will probably be do
ing something next week. On account Of
stormy weather, the eompany's tug
boats have been unable to put out ir
the sound and tow logs to the mills =
and for that reason the mills haven't
enough logs on hand to keep everything
going full blast. Besides, the recent
of several barges from SER
vice in order to make repairs, has les
sened the number available for taking
logs to Elizabeth City,