BlackBear_Logging_Buchanan_Ellen_SilsbeeTX_29July2024_Reel4209.mp3

Ellen Buchanan [00:00:00] Let me go into timber cutting.

Ellen Buchanan [00:00:02] You had the timber barons that came in - John Henry Kirby, others. And they started on one end of the state and just started moving. And they cut down everything in their path.

Ellen Buchanan [00:00:17] As I understand, in the beginning, they just didn't have saws big enough at the mills to be able to mill the timber. And so some of the larger trees were spared.

Ellen Buchanan [00:00:28] But then, you can always build a bigger saw blade, right?

Ellen Buchanan [00:00:33] So, no vision for the future, which I worry about is the same thing that we have today. What is the vision for the future?

Ellen Buchanan [00:00:42] They had their lumber towns, their timber towns. Understand too, that these folks weren't paid in dollars. They were paid in scrip - Kirby scrip. So, if you went to the store, if you went to the doctor, wherever you went, you paid in Kirby scrip. All these folks worked in the mills.

Ellen Buchanan [00:01:02] Kirby Mill was right down from where I live. I walk past the old Kirby Mill every day. It was the largest mill in the world. Largest mill in the world, and it's no longer there. As far as I know, Hardin County does not have a lumber mill here now.

Ellen Buchanan [00:01:17] So, they essentially marched across southeast Texas, cutting down pretty much everything in their path except if it was too wet to get into, which saved a lot of timber.

Ellen Buchanan [00:01:30] And of course, longleaf pine was the predominant pine in this area, as it was from Virginia all the way through southeast Texas. And there's only 6% of that ecosystem now left.

Ellen Buchanan [00:01:46] Loblolly pine is a much faster-growing tree. It'll germinate on anything, whereas longleaf pine needs fire to come through. It needs bare ground for the seed to germinate, and then it takes a lot longer for it to grow. It stays in that grass stage for 2 to 3 years before it starts shooting up.

Ellen Buchanan [00:02:09] But, most of your telephone poles, electric poles are made out of longleaf pine because of the durability and the strength of longleaf pine. And then that ecosystem that it sheltered, that it was a part of, with pine hill bluestem. And so, most of that is gone now.

Ellen Buchanan [00:02:31] A lot of folks working on restoration of longleaf pine: the t-shirt I have on today is planting in the Big Thicket, working on restoring longleaf pine.

Ellen Buchanan [00:02:42] But, you know, the, the trees were cut down. And so, if the bears have no food or shelter, where are they supposed to, to be? And so, I think that they were, that's why it was so easy, I believe, to kill the bears in the what's now the Lance Rosier Unit. Because they were just pushed and pushed closer and closer to the rivers and creeks. That was their last bastion of, of survival.