The House of Thompson

The House of Thompson was originally printed in 1908 for The American Lumberman magazine. This historical document recounts the story of two brothers, John Martin Thompson and William Wirt Thompson, and the series of timber stands they purchased and sawmills they built in East Texas. Sawmills were located in such East Texas towns as New Willard, Old Willard, Doucette, Grayburg, and Trinity. The fine yellow pine lumber they produced was trademarked as Lone Star Pine. The American Lumberman sent a writer and a photographer to East Texas to gather material for the original publication. The text presents the full historical story of the Thompson family and their timber industry. The book contains over 90 pages with rare photos that show the forests of the region as many old-timers have described them, and similar to how they probably appeared when the first European explorers arrived in Texas. The development of modern photography at the beginning of the 1900s coincided with the availability of the still standing East Texas forest to present this unmatched glimpse into our past. The early Thompson family history begins with memories from John Martin Thompson of their father Benjamin F. Thompson; and the 10,000 acres he acquired near Kilgore, TX to develop cotton fields as he had in his native state of Georgia. The land contained a great amount of shortleaf yellow pine timber which became the first lumber operation of the Thompson family. The two brothers went to military school in Kentucky and then to fight in the Civil War. Upon returning to Texas, they moved to East Texas and started buying forest land and building sawmills at towns that grew up at the sawmill sites. Along with the existing forest environment, the reader is introduced to the woods crews that cut the huge timbers and skidded them to the rail line, the steel crews who laid the railroad into the forests, the loading crews who placed the logs on railroad cars to travel to the mill, and various sawmill operators who ran the machines to cut the logs and prepare them for market. Each of the Thompson sawmills is pictured inside and outside in great detail. The railroad became the major means of moving the heavy logs from the forest to the production plants, and ultimately out to markets in Texas and the nation. This reprint was made possible by a donation to the Texas Forestry Museum of an original copy of the 1908 volume The House of Thompson by Lucile Slocumb Thompson and John Gray Thompson, great great- grandchildren of John Martin Thompson. Stephen F. Austin State University and the East Texas Research Center lent assistance by scanning this document into a useable form. This reprint honors the families whose ancestors worked in the East Texas logging industry during the early 1900s, and who led the whole East Texas Landowners movement. They shared their love for the lands and forests of East Texas with their families and friends and opened the door to a life-long involvement in good forest management for the younger generations. This facsimile copy is sponsored by the Sam R. and Malcolm Monroe Barnes Foundation in an effort to document the story of living and logging in the East Texas forests of the past. The book preserves the heritage of East Texas forestry and the way the last great southern forest looked a century ago.

All Things Historical Lone Star Pine shows forgotten East Texas Forests By Bob Bowman In the early 1800s when East Texas was settled by Southern families, they were greeted by vast pine forests where massive trees towered over the land. It was not unusual to see pines as large as five feet in width. An early settler wrote his family back in Alabama, The forests are so thick with giant trees that our wagons could not pass that way. Vanishing Pines But with the coming of the early roads, sawmills began to sprout up throughout the forests. The giant pines came down and became lumber that helped build cities like Houston, Dallas, Beaumont and Shreveport. Today, only a handful of plots in East Texas retain the appearance of the early forests. But a new book published by Jane G. Baxter of Nashville, TN and Dan T. Barnes of Trinity, TX has captured the appearance of the old forests that existed in the early 1900s. Lone Star Pine is actually a reprint of a copy of American Lumberman magazine, which devoted its Sept. 28, 1908 volume to the Thompson Lumber Co, the oldest lumber manufacturer in Texas. Lucile Slocomb Thompson and John Gray Thompson, great-great-grandchildren of John Martin Thompson, gave a copy of the 1908 volume, The House of Thompson, to the Texas Forestry Museum at Lufkin. What makes Lone Star Pine so unusual are photos of forests that will never be seen again, as well as scenes from sawmill towns that vanished or have become shells of what they were in 1908. John Martin Thompson is credited with founding the company. He was born in Georgia, moved with his parents to Kilgore in East Texas, was educated in Kentucky, and took over his father s sash sawmill and 10,000 acres near Kilgore with his brother, William Wirt Thompson. They enlarged the mill and began buying additional lands, and building new sawmills and towns across East Texas. Thompson mills soon sprouted at Trinity in Trinity County, Willard in Polk County, Doucette in Tyler County, and Grayburg in Jefferson County. Rare Photographs The book contains more than 90 pages of rare photographs that show the woods as they looked when the earliest settlers came. One of East Texas most famous photos is a scene showing rotund Peter Doucette, for whom the town was named, standing by a 56 inch upland shortleaf yellow pine tree. Other photos show the Thompson Brothers store at Kilgore, early scenes of Kilgore, and sawmill operations at Trinity, Willard, Doucette and Grayburg. This column is distributed by the East Texas Historical Association. Bob Bowman of Lufkin is a former president of the association and the author of 36 books about East Texas. --East Texas Historical Association