TIE-HACKERS, TIE-RAFTING, AND THE RAILROAD CROSSTIE .
Old Settlers Gazette 2005 - Page 4TTIE-HACKERS, TIE-RAFTING, AND THE RAILROAD CROSSTIE INDUSTRYAT ARLINGTON AND JEROMEhis is a look at the tie industry,once a vibrant part of PhelpsCounty’s economy. Six inches byeight inches and eight feet long, therailroad crosstie was nearly an articleof currency over much of southernMissouri. The expanding railroad frontier after the Civil War created an insatiable demand for ties. The NorthAmerican railroad network reached itsgreatest extent in 1916 with about250,000 miles of track. Every milerequired nearly 2,500-3,500 crossties(as trains got heavier and faster, railroads found it cheaper to add moreties per mile rather than buy heavierrail). In the days before preservationtreatment, ties only lasted five to sevenyears, so track renewal as well as newconstruction added to the burgeoningmarket for crossties. During the heyday of the tie industry, Arlington andJerome became the hub of the trade,not only for Phelps County, but alsomuch of Texas and Pulaski countiesdue to the unique intersection of riversand rails. Hundreds of thousands ofties floated down the Big Piney andGasconade rivers to the landing atJerome—the headquarters of a host ofmemorable characters including backwoods tie-rafters with the bark still onthem and savvy tie-buyers who madefortunes. The landing at Jeromebecame so important to the local tieindustry that it provoked some legalbuccaneering over ownership in a casethat ultimately went to the MissouriSupreme Court.The tie industry in Phelps Countypeaked about World War One.Afterwards it declined due to a number of factors. By then the NorthAmerican railroad system began tocontract as marginal lines becamemoney-losers and were removed.Railroads increasingly employedpreservation treatments (one of thefirst was a zinc-tannin process dubbed“Burnettizing,”), so ties lasted longer(up to thirty years in some instances);and in Phelps, Pulaski, and Texascounties, the best and most accessibletimber had already been cut by twogenerations of lumbermen and tiemakers. Finally, the Depression bankrupted many railroads and causedmost to defer maintenance. Thedemand for ties fell accordingly, alongwith prices for them. World War Tworevived the markets for all types ofwood products, ties included, but itwas a different industry by then, withincreasing mechanization, less handwork, and fewer laborers. Sawed ties(more uniform in size) had replacedhewed ties, and the railroads nowdealt strictly with large timber compa-by John F. Bradbury, Jrnies for their supply of crossties.Until the widespread availability ofportable sawmills about World WarTwo, nearly all the crossties werehand-hewn (switch ties, up to sixteenfeet long, were a different matter).While there were many more-or-lessfull time hewers, tie-hacking, as it wascalled, was an auxiliary enterprise formost farm families. It was a significantsource of income during the winter,producing cash money for tax andplanting seasons. Tie money also provided paying jobs for people withmules or teams, and stakes for youngmen looking to begin families of theirown.Most merchants in the county storesalong the railroad bought crossties,and, taken as trade, ties settled manyan account for groceries and sundries.They were but a small part of the tradein country produce atKnobview/Rosati, St. James, and Rolla,but were the major component of theeconomy of Arlington and Jerome.Those river villages became the localhub of the tie industry because of theiradvantageous location at the railroadcrossing of the Gasconade River.Upstream, the Big Piney and LittlePiney rivers flowed into theGasconade and funneled the ties ofmuch of Texas and Pulaski counties aswell as Phelps County to the railroadcrossing. Great rafts of ties camedownriver guided by a tough breed oflumbermen who took to the rivers aseasily as they took to the hills in searchof good timber. There was no betterlanding and tie yard on the upperGasconade than the one at Jerome,where millions of ties from hundredsof rafts were transferred to boxcars.There were several components ofthe industry: tie-hackers produced thecrossties in the woods; men who raftedor hauled ties to delivery points (sometimes the same individuals cut anddelivered the ties); loading crews,hired by the railroads or contractors toload crossties on railcars; and the localmerchants, tie contractors, and inspectors on the business end of the industry.THE TIE-HACKERSThere seem to be no records available that show it, but the tie industryin Phelps County must have begun in1859 and 1860 as the South WestBranch of the Pacific Railroad builtwestward to Rolla, where constructionstalled until the end of the Civil War.The line was spared extensive damageduring the war, but like the other railroads in Missouri, it was worn out andAlbert Emily hacking a tie with a broadaxe. U.S. Forest Service photographCourtesy of Western Historical Manuscript Collection--Rolla.bankrupt by 1865. A group of investorsled by John Charles Fremont (seen lastin Missouri as major general commanding the state before Lincolnrelieved him from command) purchased the railroad in 1866 and finished the line to Arlington in 1867,whereupon that company also wentbankrupt. It was 1869 before yet athird railroad company finished thebridge over the Gasconade River andbuilt westward toward Springfield. Itwas 1876 and another bankruptcybefore the “Frisco” (St. Louis and SanFrancisco Railway Company) was created. By that time, surely, the crosstiehad become a major part of PhelpsCounty’s economy, first for local use,then increasingly for export.It didn’t take much capital expenditure up front to go into the tie business. In the earliest days the timberwas free—given away by landownerslooking to have land cleared or“grandmawed” by hackers from government and railroad lands in theOzarks. Timber theft, in fact, was acorollary of the tie industry. In theFrisco railroad’s first annual report(1877), land commissioner W. H. Coffincomplained that the company’s landswere being greatly damaged by trespassers who cut ties and floated themdown the Gasconade, selling them tothe Union Pacific and other westernroads. Coffin reported that the company’s reward of 50.00 for reporting illegal tie-hackers had resulted in a fewarrests, but timber trespass along theFrisco line remained a problem.The best trees were those about afoot in diameter (larger size meantmore wood to be removed, and therewas no money in chips) and tallenough to yield two eight-foot tieswithout knots or defect. Site selectionwas important, especially when priceswere low. Gathering up tools and mov-
ing from tree to tree wasted time, andgetting ties out of the woods to a market was always a major consideration.Pine and oak (white and red) were thepreferred species, but the railroads alsoaccepted “kindred” woods such ashickory, black oak, post oak, gum, andelm that had not had much marketablevalue before the tie industry camealong.The tools were few and commonlyavailable: a crosscut saw, double-bittedaxe and broadaxe, files for keepingedges keen, a measuring stick called atie scantling, and a little coal oil tokeep sap and resin from building upOld Settlers Gazette 2005 - Page 5on the blades. Tie-hackers frequentlyworked in pairs to fell trees with thecrosscut saw. It was not unheard of forthe woman of the family to take theend of a crosscut saw opposite herhusband. After a tree was felled, eachhacker worked on his own tie, scoringdown its length before removing thebark and chips, called “juggles.” Ingood timber, a tie-hacker could maketen hardwood or fifteen pine ties a day.In later years when tie timber becamevaluable enough, the owner of thetrees got a portion of the proceeds. Thegeneral rule of thumb was one-half ofthe price of the tie to the hacker, anoth-A family tie camp in the brush near Duke. ca. 1909. (l-r) Mandy Green, EdnaRyno, Jess Green, Joe Green (seated), Nancy Jane Ryno Green, Claude Ryno.Courtesy of Bill Ryno.Most tie-hacker camps were not as upscale as the one shown in this postcardmailed Aug. 2, 1912. Courtesy of John Bradbury.1/4 page Bowles Aquariumer quarter to the man who hauled thetie to the tie yard (as much as half ifthe circumstances were particularlydifficult), and the last one-quarter tothe owner of the timber.There seems to have been a class offulltime tie-makers along the Pineysand Gasconade by the turn of the nineteenth century. Good tie-hacks couldfind work about anywhere in southernMissouri in boom times, such as whenthe Chicago, Rock Island & Pacificbuilt its line across Missouri (the RockIsland crossed the Gasconade atFreeburg in 1904). Tie buyers couldn’tkeep up with the escalating demandfor ties, and in peak times tie-hackerscould pick and choose between various tracts and the types of timber theywanted to work. The Rolla Herald carried the advertisement calling for tiehackers and wood choppers atArlington in March 1902 (possibly forRock Island ties), and W. H. Ross atDuke advertised for fifty tie-hackers tocut 4,000 acres of “good timber” alongthe Piney in November 1910. Tie priceswere good enough to tempt a number1/4 page King Auto Glass
Old Settlers Gazette 2005 - Page 6of Piney men to cross over into theCurrent River watershed in ShannonCounty in January 1912. Unfortunately,their arrival coincided with a severecold spell, and the Duke correspondentto the Herald noted that “they are having a cold time camping out.”Depending on the tract, the canvasand log huts were among the crudestshelters seen on the landscape sinceprehistoric days, or could approachsomething like permanent quarters asshown in a postcard view of the time.However, no matter whether it wasfull or part time, on the farm or in distant timber, and in fair weather or foul,tie-hacking was, as the saying went, “ahard way to serve the Lord.”THE RAFTERSRafters may be thought of asamphibious lumbermen who both produced the product and transported itto market by water. Lumber rafting hasan ancient history and was employedin North America as early as colonialtimes. Rafters in this area hailed mostly from Texas and Pulaski counties,where railroad ties made up thenewest facet of a much older lumberindustry on the Big Piney River.Lumbermen began felling trees alongthe Piney in 1816, working in a neck ofshortleaf pine that extended into TexasCounty (near what became Licking)Rolla Weeky Herald, Nov. 24, 1910from the nearly-solid pine forest in theCurrent and Black River regions to thesoutheast. The soft, easily-worked pinewas especially desirable for dimensional lumber and finish carpentry atSt. Louis, which quadrupled in sizefrom 1820 through 1840, as well as thegrowing population centers on theMissouri River at St. Charles, theBoonslick region, and, later, the townof Hermann. Pine lumber was alsomuch in demand after the devastatingSt. Louis fire of 1849. The north-flowing Big Piney River provided themeans to get logs and lumber out ofthe interior Ozarks, and there wereabundant springs large enough topower vertical-blade sawmills.The first lumbermen to work in theforests of the interior Ozarks were menin St. Louis, western St. Louis County,and St. Charles who had come toMissouri from Kentucky during theSpanish colonial period. These frontierentrepreneurs included Alexander andJohn Baldridge, Josiah H. Burkhart,Thomas Cork, Archibald McDonald,Sylvester Pattie, Richard Sullens, JacobTruesdell, and William Walton. Manyof them probably knew Daniel Booneand his family back in Kentucky. Ifthey hadn’t become acquainted withthe Boones earlier, they came to knowhis son, Daniel Morgan Boone, andother Boone kin in the Missouri militiacompanies from St. Charles during theWar of 1812. They would also haveknown another legendary frontier figure, Col. William H. Ashley, whosemilitia unit from Ste. Genevieve andWashington counties served alongwith the St. Charles militia during thewar. Many of these militiamen probably already had long experience developing frontier resources in the furtrade, mining industry, sawmillingbusiness, or learned from their militiacomrades. The militia companies provided a cadre of tough, skilled frontiersmen with a good knowledge of theOzarks and a keen eye for naturalresources.When the war ended in 1815, the former militiamen had connections, capital, and credit enough to beginexploitation of sites already identified.They were perfectly positioned tomake the jump to the Big Piney River.By the time Missouri became a state in1821, opening the floodgates to immigration, the lumber industry on thePiney was already several years old.By the mid-1820s there were six mills1/2 page CommunityBank of Dixonon the river in Texas County. Some ofthe most prominent early citizens ofthe region were engaged in thesawmill business by then, includingJames Bates, John Fourt, and DavidLynch of Texas County; Adam, Isaac,and William Bradford of Spring Creek,and Samuel Harrison at the mouth ofthe Little Piney in Phelps County.Addison Bates, James P. Bates,Solomon King, and Gabriel M. Pikewere prominent lumbermen in the1830s and 1840s. Pike was said to havemade more than forty rafting trips toSt. Louis before the Civil War, guidingrafts of layered lumber in connectedsquares (usually sixteen feet square). Atrip took forty to eighty days, depending on conditions, and the way back tothe Piney was on foot.The first rafts of pine lumber probably floated down the river in thespring of 1817. Place names on the BigPiney and its tributaries between present-day Licking and Fort LeonardWood derive from this earliestsawmilling and rafting--at PaddyCreek (misnamed after SylvesterPattie), Boone Creek (after DanielMorgan Boone and presumably nearhis sawmill in 1821), Bald Ridge Creek(misnamed after the Baldridge clan),and Pike’s Defeat (an S-turn in theriver that caused no end of trouble toGabe Pike’s rafts and still does to inexperienced canoeists today). When the
tie industry began after the Civil War,rafting was already a well-establishedfacet of the lumber trade and the BigPiney a well known avenue to markets. It is not known how large therafts might have been in the earliestdays, but Adam Bradford broughtdown an immense raft of 100,000 feetof lumber to Vienna in March 1881,and Kauffman & Oatley delivered araft of 75,000 feet to Arlington in June1883. James P. Bates, John A. Bell,Kauffman & Oatley, Jim Thompson,Robert Williams, and other TexasCounty lumbermen floated rafts ofpine lumber downriver to SpringCreek, Arlington, and Vienna as late asthe turn of the century. However, tierafts increasingly dominated river traffic.Tie-rafters assembled rafts at theriver bank after the ties were hauled tothe bank with wagons and teams, ortumbled down bluffs at tie “slides.”Several slides along the river are identified on the “Tourist” maps of Phelps,Pulaski, and Texas counties publishedin the 1930s. Rafters arranged the tiescrosswise against the river’s currentand nailed binders along the edges ofthe ties to form blocks of about 50-100ties. The blocks were fastened togetherwith oak saplings or vines, leavingenough space between them for therafts to curve or “snake” aroundbends. Smaller blocks at the bow andstern completed the raft. Rafterssteered the front of the raft with “set”poles. Poling off the bottom was preferred—pushing off of slippery rockscould have cold, wet consequences.The “snub” pole provided the raft’sbrakes. In peak times the riverbed wassaid to have been scored along itslength with the scars of snub poles. Agood rafter in the best of conditionscould handle 300 ties alone (a raft 8feet wide and perhaps 250 feet long),but the usual crew for longer raftsseems to have been two or three men.They communicated conditions anddirections by hollering, and the shoutsof the rafters echoing down the valleylet everyone know that a raft was onits way.Navigation was always a tricky business, especially during high water, andthe brakes didn’t always work. In fact,the first known reference to tie-raftingin Phelps County newspapers is in theMay 27, 1872 Rolla Weekly Herald—areport a runaway raft had damagedthe railroad bridge at Jerome anddelayed trains. No doubt words wereexchanged between railroaders andrafters during that episode. The tieindustry generated enough river trafficby 1880 that there was interest in“improving” the Gasconade for navigation. A government engineer estimated that 80,000 ties had been raftedto various points along the railroad in1/4 page Mid Missouri Motors1879, and suggested that the potentialincrease of that business was a significant argument for improvements(mostly removing snags) costing 50,000 at seventy-six points along theriver.Some money was spent on the lowerGasconade, but rafters coming downto Arlington and Jerome dealt with the“unimproved” rivers. Even in the bestof circumstances, getting rafts downriver was a tough business. Other thankegs of nails, blankets, tents, and provisions piled upon a scaffold to keepthem dry, there were no amenities onthe rafts for passengers. The men tiedup at night, camping on the bank. Ifthey were within walking distance ofhomesites or near the country stores atDogtown, Edenville, Hazelton,Newtown, Raftville, Slabtown, andDuke, the rafters might negotiate for ameal or fresh provisions. Otherwise itwas bacon and cornmeal and whateverthe river provided. They preferred gigging or trot lines from the rafts, butwere the acknowledged local expertson river and fishing conditions whenthe first sportsmen came to fish the BigPiney and Gasconade. Urban sportslearned they could hitch rides on rafts,too, but the St. Louis Globe Democrat’s“Rod & Gun” correspondent advisedanglers taking this route that they hadbetter be prepared to swim at anytime. The rafters had to be part-Old Settlers Gazette 2005 - Page 7The rafting of plank lumber may havestarted as early as 1816 on the BigPiney River. Tie-rafting was over bythe time this postcard was mailed onJuly 30, 1930. Courtesy of JohnBradbury.1/4 page Citizens Mortgage
Old Settlers Gazette 2005 - Page 8Big Piney rafters John Wesley Wilson, Henry Kohanski, and Robert Wilson, ca.1900. Western Historical Manuscripts Collection—Rolla.amphibian in any case--photographsshow their feet mostly awash at alltimes.Large rafts could be “doubled” (broken into two pieces) past bad bends orobstructions, but they broke up frequently enough anyway at Pike’sDefeat on the Big Piney, and TableRock and Thox Rock on theGasconade. Devils Elbow on the Pineymay have also been named duringrafting days, too, but John Whitaker,one of the last of the old-time rafters,claimed the Elbow never caused anyproblems. Rafts piling up againstobstructions sank under the weight ofthe ties, forming dangerous jams. Themore water-logged the ties became, themore likely the rafters would have tofasten dry sycamore “floaters” to buoythe rafts. Shoals also broke up rafts,scattering ties and lumber all the waydown the Piney and Gasconade toHerman. Breakups caused considerable loss to the rafters, who assumedresponsibility for their rafts until delivery. In such instances, rafters had noother alternative but to gather and nailup whatever was left of rafts (providedthe nails could be salvaged) and con-1/4 page Mark PrughAttornertinue downstream.High water caused the biggest problems, not only in navigation (as in therailroad incident at Jerome), but also torafts tied up along the banks. The RollaNew Era reported in August 1876 themisfortune of Texas County lumberman H. W. Williams, who lost 20,000board feet of lumber tied up atArlington to an unexpected freshet. Aspringtime flood in 1878 (said to havebeen the biggest since 1844) cost a doctor named Roach a large raft of logswhen it could not be stopped atArlington, and tie rafters lost 600 tiesin the same flood. To assist in raftinglogs and gathering stray ties afterbreakups, F. H. Brinkerhoff &Company, lumbermen from Logan,Missouri, who had leased the oldRombauer sawmill at Jerome, built inNovember 1879 a homemade steamtug that drew only eigh
full time hewers, tie-hacking, as it was called, was an auxiliary enterprise for most farm families. It was a significant source of income during the winter, producing cash money for tax and planting seasons. Tie money also pro-vided paying jobs for people with mules or teams, and stakes for young men looking to begin families of their own.
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Title: Rafting on the Susquehanna Author: Magee Subject: Timber Rafting / Lumbering / Canals / Pilots and pilotage / Susquehann
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