Opening of Lumber Mill Season 1903, Joyce Mill Starts

 
From: The Clinton Herald, April 14, 1902, P. 5
Transcribed by a Clinton County IaGenWeb volunteer.

The Season’s Lumber Cut Began This Morning.

Five Hundred Men are Employed in the Lyons and Fulton Mills – Chancy Lamb Goes North for a Raft – Wanderer and Idler Return from the South.

The sound of the mill whistle was heard at 7 o’clock this morning for the first time this spring. The Joyce mills in this city and Fulton have commenced the season’s cut, giving employment to a large force of men. About 200 are employed in the mill and yards in this city, while the Fulton mill employs a hundred or so more than the Lyons. The mills will run ten hours a day, and it is expected that sufficient logs will be secured to keep them going constantly during the season.

The steamer Glenmont is towing logs for Joyce this year.

The Fulton Journal has the following regarding the improvements that have been made on the mill in that city:

“The endless bed, which is to be used in carrying the lumber from the double cut band saw to the live rollers in the Joyce Lumber company’s mill at Fulton, has arrived.

“During the winter months in which the mill was shut down many necessary repairs have been made in the mill besides adding improved machinery. On the north side of the mill an addition eight feet wide was built. This was necessary as the filling room for the double cut band saw required more floor space.

“The new double cut band saw which has been installed cuts both ways and the lumber from the saws is taken away by means of an endless bed and carried to the front of the mill on live rollers. The new saws are forty-seven feet long, twelve inches wide and three-sixteenths of an inch thick. The teeth run eight to the foot. The operating of this new machinery will not require any more men than was required to operate the single cut band saw, and the aggregate cut will be greatly increased as now the saw cuts off a board while the log is going and another while it is coming.”

The Lamb mills are to start soon. Saturday night the steamer Chancy Lamb cleared for the north for her first raft. Upon her return from the northern pineries, the mills will be started. The exact date is not yet announced.

The Wanderer also will tow logs for the Lamb mills this year. The boat returned from her southern cruise, with the Idler in tow, conveying the Lamb party, reaching Clinton at 7:30 o’clock Saturday night. The party made the trip to New Orleans, leaving Cairo in the late winter. The trip on the lower river was greatly enjoyed.

The Clinton Herald, April 14, 1902, P. 5
River Notes.

Shortly before noon Sunday, Clinton people watched the passage south of the steamer Saturn, Captain Williams’ rafter, with the largest lumber raft ever taken down the Mississippi. The boat started down the river last fall with the raft, but was compelled to tie up in a slough above Winona. The raft was one of unusual length and attracted much attention.