Last year my granddaughter Anna Grace’s English teacher, Jessie Branning, assigned “Wish You Well” by David Baldacci to her eighth-grade students at Union Middle School. Although the book’s setting was the mountain country of Virginia, I could visualize Union’s rural history throughout the novel.
Like the book, Union boasted of being a bustling, successful town in the early 1900s. Similar industries that moved into both Union and Baldacci’s towns provided jobs that led to economic growth for its people.
The first industry that bolstered Union’s growth was a lumber mill. In 1901, J.R. Buckwalter came to Union from Wingate, Miss., after originally moving from
Pennsylvania to start a lumber business. He began buying timber, and by 1906, he had built a saw mill on the south side of McMahen St. at the junction of Bank Street and started manufacturing lumber.
The only transportation for taking logs to the mill was the train. Mr. Buckwalter owned five trains and the dummy tracks that led to his mill. Incoming logs were dropped into the log pond located just beside the mill. Then men on a raft used long sticks to guide the logs over an underwater chain that carried them upward into the mill for production. The finished products were then loaded back onto the train to be transported out of the mill. After the sawmill closed, he sold the trains to GM&N railroad.
During its peak in the 1920s, the saw mill had 500 employees with a monthly payroll of $35,000. Sydney Stribling stated in a later article in his Union Appeal that in 1910, the population of Union was 600. By 1929, it was 3,000. It was said at that time to be the largest town in the county.
Mr. Buckwalter also built a Mill Commissary facing the mill from across the street on the northwest corner of Bank and McMahen. In addition to their paychecks, mill employees who needed extra cash could get advances in the form of trade dollars called brozines, coins that could be used in the company store. Some of the businesses in town would even accept brozines as payment for merchandise and then take them to the commissary to trade for cash.
Because of difficult travel, many mill employees stayed in Union during the weekdays living in apartments or boarding houses or rental rooms in homes and then returned to their rural homes on the weekends. Sometime during the 1920s, Buckwalter built an addition to the back of Boler’s Inn to enlarge a boarding house for his employees.
Union citizens who lived through the Buckwalter Lumber Co. period will certainly remember the mill whistle blowing at 7 a.m., 12 noon, and 5 p.m.
Times remained good for the lumber company and for Union for many years, but by December 1931, the timber supply had become exhausted. The saw mill closed and was later dismantled. However, the company continued to operate the planing mill and concentration yard. In fact, the old steam engine that supplied power to the planer is still located on its foundation at the former Buckwalter location.
A.I. Buckwalter followed his father as company president. After his death in 1933, W.P. Cassel, J.R. Buckwalter’s nephew, took over as president until his death in 1961. His son W.S. then became president until the Buckwalter Lumber Company and the Commissary finally closed in July 1962.
Several houses in Union were built using beautiful wood manufactured at Buckwalter Lumber Co. Among them was the Jack Rhea Tannehill home built by W.P. Cassel in 1936. Verne and Irene Rutledge, Buckwalter’s daughter, erected the home at 212 Peachtree Street., now occupied by Joe and Claire Norsworthy. In addition, John Buckwalter constructed the two-story home at 206 Long Street. Finally, J.R. built the home next to the Citizens Bank as a wedding present for his son A.I.
Buckwalter Lumber Mill provided the foundation that Union needed to grow as a town. However, even as it closed and as Baldacci’s fictional lumber mill closed, other industries had moved into town that kept both Union and Baldacci’s mountain towns alive. Union’s industries will be the subject of another column.
I want to give a special thanks to Bill Cassel, who contributed greatly to this article, and to Melvya for graciously welcoming me into their home.
Again, I’m asking for information. If you have something to add to these articles or pictures to share, please send them to me at teresablount26@yahoo.com or 601-774-5564 or 109 Woodhaven Dr., Union, 39365. Thanks to the ones who have already shared in helping to preserve Union’s history.
Do you have the answers to these questions?
*When was the Buckwalter Commissary actually torn down?
*Where was Blackburn Bros. when they first opened a business in Union?
*Where was Laird’s Fitness? Did it change buildings?
*Laird Home Health opened at 500 E. Jackson Rd. in 1985. When did it close?
