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How would you design a storm cellar....definitely not like a 1900 storm cellar!

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...can be anyday!

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Pinterest

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10 Storm Cellar and Tornado-Safe Room Design Ideas (With images) | Safe room

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May 28, 2012 - A safe room is all that's left of a farmstead after a tornado destroyed the surrounding house. Here are some storm cellar & tornado safe room design ideas.

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Listen to my message and try the challenge in the column below.

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Listen to my message and then check out the Vocabulary list below!

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"...the wind shrieked so loudly all about her that she nearly became deaf." (Chapter 1)

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"...the wind shrieked so loudly all about her that she nearly became deaf." (Chapter 1)

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This is the first half of Chapter 1. You will find Part 2 below in this same column!

Maximize so you can read the FUN FACTS throughout my reading!

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This Chapter's Setting is Kansas. Kansas is one of our 50 states. Can you find Kansas on this map of the U.S.A.?

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This Chapter's Setting is Kansas. Kansas is one of our 50 states. Can you find Kansas on this map of the U.S.A.?

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Here is a clue:
Kansas is the the USA as Middletown is to Connecticut.
Here is another clue:
On this map, Kansas is green.
When you find Kansas, click the heart on the bottom of this post!

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Now that you have found Kansas, try this challenge. Don't forget to use the Like-Heart and Comment features.

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Now that you have found Kansas, which is abbreviated: KS., you can find its border states! There are four states that border Kansas. What are their names? What are their abbreviations?

Which state is North?
Which state is South?
Which state is East?
Which state is West?

One of these states has an abbreviation that means "alright!" or "sure"...Can you name it?....Maybe you can SING it too (haha!)

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Very important information regarding this Padlet and how you should participate!

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This is the second half of Chapter 1. Check out ASE Enrichment Activity ideas in the next column.

Maximize so you can read the FUN FACTS throughout my reading!

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Scroll down through each column so you don't miss anything!

Use the HEART to LIKE a post.

Comment on posts to interact with ChaeChae, other staff, teachers, and friends.

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Can you define these words from this Chapter? Can you put them into alphabetical order? Can you spell them using ASL fingerspelling?

Prairie
Garrett
Cyclone
Gaunt
Solemn
Livestock
Pressure

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"Sunflowers" Series

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This experiment can be done using a metal washer instead of the tube.

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Floating Ping Pong Balls with AIR PRESSURE!

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Floating Ping Pong Balls with AIR PRESSURE!

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Flying Ping Pong Ball - Sick Science! #186

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Did you look it up? Here are some clues about what it is!

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It's raining ping pong balls, thanks to Ellen's favorite scientist!

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Cultural Competency: The Many Myths of the Horseshoe as Home Decor!

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Cultural Competency: The Many Myths of the Horseshoe as Home Decor!

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A very cool quick explanation of the myths surrounding the horseshoe through history.

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A very cool quick explanation of the myths surrounding the horseshoe through history.

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ASL Fingerspelling with Jillian from KKB: Kid's Korner at Bielefield School!

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ASL Fingerspelling with Jillian from KKB: Kid's Korner at Bielefield School!

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This is really great stuff!

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A Game of Horsehoes....A GAME OF HORSEHOES

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A Game of Horsehoes....A GAME OF HORSEHOES

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Fun Games Kids Play
Outdoor and Indoor Children's Games

Rules and directions - how to play horseshoes

What You Need
Horseshoes and two stakes.

Object of the Game
Be the first one to reach 21 or 40 points.

Set Up for Horseshoes
Set up the two stakes 40 feet apart. When two players are playing they each stand at the same stake throw towards the opposite stake.

When teams are playing one team member stands at each of the two stakes.

How to Play Horseshoes
Horseshoes Game Rules
The first player begins by tossing both horseshoes one at a time to the opposite stake. Then the second player throws both of their horseshoes. Play continues until one player (or team) reaches 40 points.

Scoring the game of Horseshoes

The closest shoe to the stake - 1 point.
If both horseshoes are closer than any opponents - 2 points.
If the horseshoe rings the stakes (a ringer) - 3 points. To be a ringer the horseshoe must completely encircle the stake so that if a stick is placed along the ends of the horseshoe the stick will not touch the stake.

Closest horseshoe and a ringer - 4 points.

If your opponent throws a ringer on top of your ringer no points are scored by either player.

If your horseshoe lands leaning (a leaner) on the stake - 1 point plus they are considered closer then any shoe expect a ringer.

To get any points shoes must be within one horseshoe width from the stake (6 inches).

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Fun Games Kids Play Outdoor and Indoor Children's Games Rules and directions - how to play horseshoes What You Need Horseshoes and two stakes. Object of the Game Be the first one to reach 21 or 40 points. Set Up for Horseshoes Set up the two stakes 40 feet apart.

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Preschooler Craft: Horseshoes | Cowboy crafts, Wild west crafts, Rodeo crafts

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May 1, 2015 - We’d actually prepared this for DD’s party as a horse shoe decorating craft activity for the kids. But in all the excitement of getting the food ready in the last 45-minute countdown, b…

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Dorothy lives in the Kansas prairies of the Mid-West. Here is some Prairie Dog Yoga for you to try!

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Here is a cool fun-fact website all about the author of The Wizard of Oz: L. Frank Baum.

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Lyman Frank Baum (May 15, 1856 - May 6, 1919) was an American writer of children's books during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is best known for his most famous and popular book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), and other Oz books that followed it.

Baum was born in a small town in Chittenango, New York. He was a member of a large family. He started writing as a child. When his father bought his children a simple printing press, Baum and a younger brother wrote and printed a small local newspaper. As a young man, Baum wrote and staged plays. Sometimes he wrote songs for his plays and starred in them himself. He also tried many other careers. He was a travelling salesman and a storekeeper for a time. He started a newspaper while he lived in a town in South Dakota. He married in 1882. He and his wife, Maud Gage Baum, raised four sons. Baum had a very good imagination. He liked creating stories for his young sons and their friends.

Writing career

When he became 40 years old and was living in Chicago, Baum started writing children's books. These books were often based on the stories he had told to children over many years. After several successes in the late 1890s, Baum published what he called an "American fairy tale," The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, in 1900. The book had pictures drawn by the American artist W. W. Denslow. Baum had to pay for the first Oz book himself. No Chicago publisher wanted to publish The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. One man even told Baum that if people had wanted to read this kind of book, it would already have been written.

But the first Oz book was a big success. Baum was able to give up other business ideas and make enough money to live on by writing children's books. The children who read his books often wrote to Baum, and asked him to write more about Oz. This caused Baum to begin a series of books set in the fantasy land of Oz. In time, Baum grew tired of the series. He tried to end it but his child readers kept demanding that he continue. Baum met their demands through the rest of his life. He wrote 14 Oz books in all. The last two were printed after his death in 1919.

Baum also wrote a large number of books other than the Oz series. He was proudest of his fantasies for children, but he also wrote many other kinds of popular works. He used many pen names for these works.

Baum's children's books were illustrated with pictures by different artists. After the first Oz book, all the rest in the series had pictures by John R. Neill.

Baum made a good income from his books. He spent time travelling around the world with his wife. They settled in Hollywood, California, and Baum made movie versions of some of his Oz books. He also produced stage versions of them. But his businesses were not always successful. In time, Baum had to declare bankruptcy. He was smart enough to put his house in his wife's name, so that they did not lose their home in the bankruptcy.

Some other Baum fantasies

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, 1902

The Enchanted Island of Yew, 1903

Queen Zixi of Ix, 1905

John Dough and the Cherub, 1906

The Sea Fairies, 1912

Sky Island, 1913

Images for kids

Promotional Poster for Baum's "Popular Books For Children", circa 1901.

The Baum-Parrish Mother Goose used to promote a breakfast cereal (part 1 of 12 as a free premium)

L. Frank Baum grave at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California. December 2011.

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Lyman Frank Baum (May 15, 1856 - May 6, 1919) was an American writer of children's books during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is best known for his most famous and popular book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), and other Oz books that followed it.

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I love rhymes, alliteration and other ways to use the English language colorfully. Here we talk about SYNONYMS and a ChaeChae Word Nerd Challenge for Chapter 1.

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It was published in 1900.

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How Old was L. Frank Baum When He Published this Book?

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How Old was L. Frank Baum When He Published this Book?

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He was born in 1856.

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How Many Years After This Book was Published was the Judy Garland Movie Released? 

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How Many Years After This Book was Published was the Judy Garland Movie Released? 

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......To the Googler!

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Recognize facial expressions and body language. Sometimes they don't match the words you read or hear.

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How would you design a Cyclone Cellar?

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Safety Where You Live

Jump to "What to Do Without a Basement or Safe Room"
Jump to Apartments and Mobile Homes

Again, the key to tornado survival is a safety plan. Your plan at home should be known by everyone in the home and practiced at least twice each year. Children who may be at home alone should know what to do and where to go even if no adults are there.

Your selection of a tornado shelter in your home will depend on many factors. Use the basic guidelines and the information below to find your tornado safety area. When selecting your shelter area, remember that your goals should be:

1. Get as low as possible - completely underground is best.

2. Put as many barriers between you and the outside as possible.

It is not the wind inside and around a tornado that kills and injures people - it's the flying debris that's in the wind. Items can fly through the air (broken glass, etc) or fall down (could range from small objects to objects the size and weight of cars)

Storm Cellars and Basements

Being completely underground is the best place to be in a tornado. If you have an underground storm cellar, use it. Make sure the door is securely fastened.

If the entrance to your storm cellar is outside, you should allow plenty of time to get to the shelter before the storm arrives. If you wait until the storm is upon you, you may be exposed to wind, hail, rain, lightning and maybe even flying debris as you go to the cellar.

A basement is also a good shelter in most cases. If your basement is not totally underground, or has outside doors or windows, stay as far away from them as possible. Items from above could fall into the basement, so it's a good idea to get under a stairwell or a piece of sturdy furniture. If possible, avoid seeking shelter underneath heavy objects on the floor above. Use coverings (pillows, blankets, sleeping bags, coats, etc) and helmets to shield your head and body and to protect yourself from flying debris.

Safe Rooms

A reinforced safe room (or above-ground tornado shelter) is as good as an underground shelter in most situations. Safe rooms are specially-designed reinforced tornado shelters built into homes, schools and other buildings. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, in close cooperation with experts in wind engineering and tornado damage, has developed detailed guidelines for constructing a safe room. For more, go to the FEMA Saferoom webpage.

If No Underground or Reinforced Shelter is Available

If you're like most people, you don't have an underground shelter. In this case, you need to find a location that is...

As close to the ground as possible

As far inside the building as possible

Away from doors, windows and outside walls

In as small of a room as possible

If you don't have a safe room, basement or underground storm shelter, what should you do? Remembering the basics of tornado safety, you should look around your home to determine the best place.

Here are Some Ideas

Bathrooms

Bathrooms MAY be a good shelter, provided they are not along an outside wall and have no windows. Contrary to popular belief, there is nothing magically safe about getting in a bathtub with a mattress. In some cases, this might be a great shelter. However, it depends on where your bathroom is. If your bathroom has windows and is along an outside wall, it's probably not the best shelter.

Bathrooms have proven to be adequate tornado shelters in many cases for a couple of reasons. First, bathrooms are typically small rooms with no windows in the middle of a building. Secondly, it is thought that the plumbing within the walls of a bathroom helps to add some structural strength to the room.

However, with tornadoes there are no absolutes, and you should look closely at your home when determining your shelter area.

Closets

A small interior closet might be a shelter. Again, the closet should be as deep inside the building as possible, with no outside walls, doors or windows. Be sure to close the door and cover up.

Hallways

If a hallway is your shelter area, be sure to shut all doors. Again, the goal is to create as many barriers as possible between you and the flying debris in and near a tornado. To be an effective shelter, a hallway should as be far inside the building as possible and should not have any openings to the outside (windows and doors).

Under Stairs

The space underneath a stairwell could be used as a shelter.

Generally speaking, you should not leave your home in your vehicle when a tornado threatens. In most cases, you will have a better chance of surviving by staying put in your home. Every home is different - there is no absolute safe place in every home. Use the guidelines. Unless you are deep underground, there is no such thing as a 100% tornado-proof shelter. Freak accidents can happen.

Apartments

The basic tornado safety guidelines apply if you live in an apartment. Get to the lowest floor, with as many walls between you and the outside as possible.

Apartment dwellers should have a plan, particularly if you live on the upper floors. If your complex does not have a reinforced shelter, you should make arrangements to get to an apartment on the lowest floor possible.

In some cases, the apartment clubhouse or laundry room may be used as a shelter, provided the basic safety guidelines are followed. You need to have a shelter area that's accessible at all times of the day or night.

Mobile Homes

Even an EF-1 tornado, typically considered a "weak tornado", will most likely severely damage a mobile home and/or roll it over. This is why tornado safety plans are so crucial for residents of mobile homes!

Pictured below is a destroyed mobile home southeast of Wewoka from a tornado in 1998. This is an example of what an EF-1 tornado can do to a mobile home.

Mobile homes are especially susceptible to high winds from severe thunderstorms and tornadoes. You will likely not be safe in a mobile home, whether you're in a hallway, a closet or a bathroom. Mobile homes cannot stand up to even a weak tornado, and you should make plans BEFORE the storm arrives to get to a safe shelter. Due to the potentially short amount of time between a warning and the arrival of a tornado, people should consider executing their safety plans when a tornado watch is issued- Do not wait for the tornado warning!

Taking cover under sturdy furniture, in a bathtub or closet or under a mattress will be meaningless in a mobile home if the home itself is destroyed, blown over, or rolled over by tornado or severe thunderstorm winds. Get out of mobile homes and find a more substantial shelter as quickly as possible.

Again, you need to have access to a shelter that is available at any time of the day or night.

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Jump to "What to Do Without a Basement or Safe Room" Jump to Apartments and Mobile Homes Again, the key to tornado survival is a safety plan. Your plan at home should be known by everyone in the home and practiced at least twice each year.

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What Would You Bring Down Into Your Storm Cellar?

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What Would You Bring Down Into Your Storm Cellar?

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If your family has been affected by Harvey's historic flooding crisis, keeping the kids occupied might be the last thing on your mind.

As thousands of families fill up shelters around Houston, many are without possessions and left having to improvise. One family even celebrated their son's birthday with everyone in the shelter, and a teacher started an online book club for kids who are affected.

As the hours stretch into days, you'll have to think of more and more interesting ways to pass the time and help keep your kids' minds off the storm. Why not do so by teaching them classic classroom and playground games you might have played as a kid? Here are some ideas to get you started:
Hopscotch (indoors)
Hopscotch without the chalk! Find a clear space on the floor where you won't bother anyone. Lay down the tape in the shape of squares. Put a number inside each square, also using the tape. Mix it up by varying the sizes of the squares and laying them down in a fun path, like a spiral.
Make a fortune teller Supplies: One piece of paper and something to write with
Players: Two at a time
First, follow the instructions for creating a paper fortune teller. On the outside flaps (the part you see when it's closed), pick a category such as numbers or colors, and fill in the flaps with four things in the category. On the reverse side (what you see when you open it a little), pick another category and fill in eight things.
Four Square Supplies: A ball and colored tape*
Players: At least 4 Here are some more detailed Four Square rules. *Tape is not needed if you find a space on the floor with four squares.
For underneath the inside flaps, have the kids brainstorm fun fortunes you can fill in -- silly, fanciful, encouraging. If they can't think of any, try leaving a blank, Mad Lib-style, and ask the kids to help fill it in. (Eg: You could write "You will meet a [animal] and name her [name]" and ask the kids for an animal and a name to finish it).
Secret Leader Optional supplies: Something to play music with (can be played without music)
Four corners (This or That edition) Players: The more then better! Players: The more the better!
To play, one person is the fortune teller and one person gets their fortune told. The person who is getting their fortune told picks one choice from the outside. The fortune teller then opens and closes that number of times (or the number of letters in the word), switching between sides. You do this again, this time choosing from the inside choices, as demonstrated below. You pick a third choice from the inside, and underneath is your fortune!

Lay down tape so that it's arranged as four squares inside of a bigger square. Designate each square with a number 1-4, and choose one person to start in each square.
The Human Knot Players: The more then better!
Person 4 bounces the ball to someone else's square. Each time it bounces in your square, you have to bounce it into someone else's square. If it goes outside of the area or hits an inside line, the last person to touch the ball is out, and everyone at a number lower than them moves to the next square up. Everyone's goal is to make it to Square 4 and stay there.

Even if you don't have access to the supplies above, there are still fun games you can play with kids with nothing more than your imagination -- and maybe a few new friends.

Before you start this game, pick a Guesser and ask them to leave the room. While they're gone, choose a "Secret Leader." Ask the Guesser to come back in and stand in the middle of a circle. Then the Secret Leader starts a dance or a silly movement, and everyone else copy-cats. The Guesser has to figure out who the Secret Leader is. The Secret Leader has to change the move every once in a while to make it possible to guess, and everyone else changes with them.

Put a spin on the classic classroom game "four corners." This game requires space to move around and four "corners" (They can be chairs, signs or anything else to designate a stopping point).

In the original game, one person is "it" and turns their back or covers their eyes. Everyone else chooses a corner to stand in, 1-4. The person who is "it" chooses a number and everyone in that corner is out. Remaining players can then choose another corner before the It person calls out another number to get more people out. This keeps going until one person remains.

To mix it up, instead of making each corner a number, make it a thing in a category. For instance, you could do a round where one corner each represents green, red, purple and blue. Change the category each round and think of four fun answers for the players to choose from each time!

Get the group to stand in a circle. Everyone reach across and grab hands with someone, making sure no one is holding on to the same person with both hands. Without letting go, the group has to work together to untangle themselves by crawling under or over each other's arms. The game is over when you're standing in a circle!

If you get a lot of kids to play with you, you might wind up with more than one circle.

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Clever ways to keep kids occupied in storm shelters

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If your family has been affected by Harvey's historic flooding crisis, keeping the kids occupied might be the last thing on your mind. As thousands of families fill up shelters around Houston, many are without possessions and left having to improvise.

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If a cyclone picked up your house and moved it miles and miles away, where would you want the whirlwind to drop you off?

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"Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon many miles."

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"Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon many miles."

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What kinds of technology made the lumber industry grow?

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Carrier Lumber & Manufacturing Company log train on the company-owned Sardis & Delta Railroad near Sardis, Mississippi. The Heisler locomotive was one of the three major types of geared locomotives used widely in the Mississippi woods. The high firebox made the Heisler a favorite of Mississippi Delta hardwood loggers because it could wade through frequent flood waters that covered the tracks. Photo from Dr. Gilbert H. Hoffman. Courtesy, Collection of Tony Howe-Gilbert Hoffman-David Price.
Larger view
Eastman, Gardiner & Company crew and log loader in the woods northwest of Laurel, Mississippi, in the 1890s. The Barnhart loader was a popular type and operated on rails on top of skeleton log cars, moving from car to car as the loading progressed. Photo from the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, Laurel, Mississippi.
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Gilchrist-Fordney Company was one of the "Big Four" sawmill companies that made Laurel, Mississippi, the major city in yellow pine production. Laurel sawmills had the highest daily output of any location in Mississippi during the era of the big mills. Photo from the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, Laurel, Mississippi.
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J. J. Newman's Clyde four-line skidder at work in Jefferson Davis County. J. J. Newman had huge sawmills at Hattiesburg and Sumrall. Sumrall was founded as a sawmill town for J. J. Newman. The Clyde skidder could gather fallen timber from as far as 1,000 feet from either side of the rail logging spur. Logs were stacked next to the spur and later loaded on log trains. Photo from S. E. Moreton, Jr. Courtesy, Collection of Tony Howe-Gilbert Hoffman-David Price.
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Kingston Lumber Company was the predecessor of Gilchrist-Fordney Company, which took over the operation in 1906 about the time this rare photo was made. The log camp consisted of portable buildings, or shacks, which could be moved from place to place. Photo from the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, Laurel, Mississippi.
Larger view
Moss Point, Mississippi, lumber boom on the East Pascagoula River circa 1900. Note the log rafts in the background. Photo from the Jackson County Archives. Courtesy, Collection of Tony Howe-Gilbert Hoffman-David Price.
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Mason Lumber Company's crew and Climax locomotive at Gandsi, Mississippi. Gandsi was a name coined from the initials of the Gulf & Ship Island (G&SI) Railroad. It was located north of present-day Seminary, Mississippi. The Climax was the least popular of the three major types of geared locomotives used by Mississippi loggers. Geared locomotives were slow but highly flexible on the rough track of temporary logging spurs. This extremely rare photo is from Mrs. John Redmon. Courtesy, Collection of Tony Howe-Gilbert Hoffman-David Price.
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The Tatum Lumber Company of Bonhomie, Mississippi, (near Hattiesburg) used Shay locomotives in its wood logging operations. The Shay was the most popular of the three major types of geared locomotives used in Mississippi woods. Its features made for easy maintenance, great flexibility on rough track, and, of course, very slow speed. The Shay's top speed was about 12 to 15 miles per hour. This 1930s photograph by William H. B. Jones. Courtesy, Collection of Tony Howe-Gilbert Hoffman-David Price.
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By Tony Howe

Mississippi's abundant virgin forest had long been a natural resource for American Indians. And to the early 19th-century settlers from Europe and America's east coast, the softwoods and hardwoods provided material for building homes, furniture, farm implements, and tools. Even so, settlers considered the millions of acres of forests as little more than obstacles to be removed in order to start developing farms.

The few people who lived in South Mississippi's pineland before 1840, for example, made their living by hunting and trapping, and later by raising cattle and hogs. By the 1840s, a few small mills for sawing logs had been built along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The sawmills were located near the mouths of major rivers and streams at locations such as Pearlington and Logtown along the Pearl River, Moss Point on the Escatawpa and Pascagoula rivers, and Handsboro on the banks of Bayou Bernard near present-day Gulfport.

River rafting

These early mills depended on water transportation to ship logs to the mills. Loggers cut trees along the banks of streams. They then tied the logs together to form rafts that were then floated downstream to sawmills at the mouths of coastal rivers.

Then several important developments in the late 1800s made possible the growth of the lumber industry in the state. By the 1850s, Mississippi sawmills began to replace less efficient reciprocal saws, which cut up and down, with the circular saw. Dry kilns, developed in the 1870s and 1880s, made it possible for mills to process long-leaf yellow pine for ever-expanding markets. In addition, the increased use of the crosscut saw replaced the more labor-intensive method of cutting trees by ax. Furthermore, with the exhaustion of timber supplies in the North and East, experienced loggers moved to Mississippi to build sawmills. Many local people became operators of large sawmills, some producing as much as 300,000 board feet of lumber per day. All of these factors led to the building of larger sawmills that produced lumber at phenomenal rates.

Timber industry thrives

But it was the building of railroads in Mississippi in the last quarter of the 19th-century that had the greatest impact on the timber industry. Railroads made it possible to build the large sawmills that dominated the industry by the early 1900s. The significance of railroads to loggers can be seen in the following statistics: In 1880, 295 sawmills had a total investment of less than one million dollars. Nearly twenty years later, in 1899, a capital investment of $10 million in 608 mills produced more than one billion board feet of lumber (a board foot is the equivalent of a board one foot by one foot by one inch).

The thriving timber industry during the 1904 to 1915 period ranked Mississippi in third place of lumber-producing states in the United States, behind Washington and Louisiana. In 1910, capital investment reached more than $39 million and the value of production climbed to nearly $43 million. Much of the total production was long-leaf yellow pine from the southern half of the state. In addition, many hardwood mills operated in the Delta region, and the east-central area of the state produced short-leaf pine.

Railroads expand industry

Sawmills depended on the railroads to ship finished lumber to growing markets in the north. Also, ports like Gulfport sprang up expanding the export lumber trade with foreign countries. Several railroads, such as the New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad, the Mobile, Jackson and Kansas City Railroad, and the Gulf and Ship Island Railroad, were built across South Mississippi.

Not only did railroads provide an outlet for finished products, they also opened up great areas of previously inaccessible timberland to lumber companies. As timber near the navigable streams was rapidly depleted, railroads provided mills a way to bring in logs that were far from rivers and streams.

Thus, many mills built their own rail lines into their timberlands. These rail lines, often called dummy lines, varied in length from mile-long railroads built with wooden rails to extensive railroads with steel rails that reached thirty or more miles into the virgin forests. By 1905, most sawmills cutting more than 25,000 board feet per day owned their own railroads.

Many towns and cities in Mississippi owe their existence to the railroads and sawmills built during the lumber boom. Typically, after a railroad was built, land buyers purchased timberland in the area and built sawmills. Towns quickly grew up around the sawmills. Many towns seemed to appear magically out of nowhere. Some of the towns became cities that still exist today — Hattiesburg, Laurel, Picayune, and Wiggins. Other towns — Inda, Howison, Hillsdale, Orvisburg, Deemer, and Electric Mills — quickly died after the mills closed.

Labor-saving equipment introduced soon after the turn of the century joined with railroads to spur growth. By 1905, the ancient caralog, a heavy ox-driven two-wheeled wagon, was replaced by the Lindsey Eight-Wheel Wagon invented by the Lindsey brothers of Laurel, Mississippi. In turn the skidder and steam log loader replaced the eight-wheel wagon. Skidders were huge winches with long cables. These cables were attached to logs, and the winches dragged them to the railhead. Such mechanizations cut logging costs and allowed for year-round operations.

Virgin forests depleted

However, skidder logging, though efficient and economical, brought complete destruction to timber too young for market. The skidders dragged large trees over smaller trees, crushing them and destroying new growth. As a result, thousands of acres were flattened each year. In the Delta and other sections of the state with good soils, removal of timber promoted profitable farming. But the great bulk of cutover lands was unsuitable for farming. Few people in the industry had an interest in planting a second forest on the devastated land, and the effort from 1909 to 1915 to make the pinelands into farms was a total failure.

New processes bring planting
of second forest

Then, in 1911 a plant at Moss Point, Mississippi, was built to produce paper from the waste products of the L. N. Dantzler sawmills. William H. Mason at Laurel, Mississippi, developed a process for manufacturing a building material called "Masonite"from young second-growth timber. These processes convinced land owners that quick returns could be had from young trees. So, they planted a second forest.

Sawmills brought the local population ample opportunities for employment during the first three decades of the 20th-century. People who had grown up on farms preferred jobs in the lumber industry and became loggers or sawmill workers.

George Teunnison, who worked in sawmills in South Mississippi before going to work for several railroads around 1900, said, "From about 1897 until 1919, an engineer could start out riding a local freight from Hattiesburg and he could just about always find a job on a log road long before he reached Lyman. It was the same way up toward Jackson."

By the 1930s, most sawmills in Mississippi had been forced to close. Encouraged by local tax laws, sawmill operators tried to cut as much timber in as short a period of time as possible. Many small mills had cut all the timber available to them within a few years, while larger mills lasted more than forty years. Dwindling timber supplies, coupled with the effects of the Great Depression, forced most mills to shut down. Some companies, such as Gilchrist-Fordney Co. and the Finkbine Lumber Company, moved their operations to the West Coast. For the most part, the timber boom from virgin forests that started in the 1890s was over by the 1930s.
Tony Howe is president of the Mississippi Great Southern Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society. For additional information, e-mail Tony Howe.
Posted May 2001

Further reading:

Nollie W. Hickman, Mississippi Harvest: Lumbering in the Longleaf Pine Belt, 1840-1915, The University of Mississippi, University, 1962.

Nollie W. Hickman, "Mississippi Forests," A History of Mississippi, Volume Two, pp. 212-232, University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, 1973.

Gilbert H. Hoffman, Dummy Lines Through the Longleaf: A History of the Sawmills and Logging Railroads of Southwest Mississippi, Quentin Press, Brookhaven, 1999.

Gilbert H. Hoffman, Steam Whistles in the Piney Woods, Longleaf Press, Hattiesburg, 1998.

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Growth of the Lumber Industry, (1840 to 1930)

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Carrier Lumber & Manufacturing Company log train on the company-owned Sardis & Delta Railroad near Sardis, Mississippi. The Heisler locomotive was one of the three major types of geared locomotives used widely in the Mississippi woods. The high firebox made the Heisler a favorite of Mississippi Delta hardwood loggers because it could wade through frequent flood waters that covered the tracks.

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How cool!

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SAWMILL Equipment: Timber Machine Technologies

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Logs to Lumber!

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Logs to Lumber - An aerial journey through the sawmill

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Can you read body language and facial expressions of these characters?

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Parent/Guardian/Student/ and Staff Expectations for Connecting to Middlesex YMCA Kids’ Korner Online Content 

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Parent/Guardian/Student/ and Staff Expectations for Connecting to Middlesex YMCA Kids’ Korner Online Content 

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