The worlds 2 nd oldest Profession The working and shaping of wood came long before the working of stone. Men probably used a properly shaped tree limb as a fighting weapon as soon as they climbed down from the tree. I have a ship’s manifest from 1633 showing the shipping of 40,000 “pipe staves” from the colony of Maryland to England. The 2nd Lord Baltimore, George Calvert, says in his advertising brochure to colonize his Maryland land (1630) that a servant can make 2,000 – 3,000 “pipe staves” while not engaged in working the plantation land of Maryland. The Boston Tea Party was about the rum tax – not Tea. More rum barrels went into the harbor (empty) than tea.

Recent History

What I Remember In the early 1900’s the Bryant family had lumber and mining operation in Arkansas. By the late 1930’s C.H. Bryant began setting up a series of interlocking partnerships to operate stave mills. Because the transportation of raw material was slow and expensive, it was the practice to move the stave mill to the timber and ship only the produced staves. Each mill had three equal partners. Mr. Bryant supplied the capital, supervised the accounting, and sold the staves. The second partner found and purchased the standing timber, moved a mill into place, and supervised start up operations to harvest the timber and saw the staves. The third partner moved close to the mill and operated the mill and local timber harvesting until the transportation of the white oak “bolts” in that area became too expensive. The procedure was then repeated in a new area. This successful arrangement was repeated many times in many states where white oak was plentiful. By the mid 1950’s transportation had improved and a mill could transport white oak timber from a larger area. The mills became more permanent and relied on normal growth in the larger area to create a continuous supply of suitable white oak. As the mills became more permanent the partnerships began to dissolve. Generally the local partner continued to operate the mill as an independent sole owner.

Company Owned Timber Harvesting When a large tract of timber was purchased or several adjoining tracts were purchased a stave mill was set up near the center of the timber. The white oak trees were dropped and the stem was cut into 40” lengths. Crews of men followed the cutters and split the 40” cuts into stave bolts using a maul and wedges. The stave bolts were then loaded onto sleds or drag carts and a tractor (crawler or wheel depending on terrain) pulled the load to the stave mill. All the unused portion of the tree was left where it fell.

Company Timber Harvest Crew

Timber Harvesting about International crawler tractor pulling sled of stave bolts

Highway Transportation about 1938 When the timber was harvested on the tract where the stave mill was located, nearby tracts were sometimes purchased and the stave bolts were hauled short distances to the mill.

Transportation of bolts to the stave mill about 1938 While the mill was operating primarily on company timber all the nearby timber owners cut, split, and delivered stave bolts as a “cash crop”. The “custom” white oak bolts were inspected and bought on a “bolt measure” and the seller was paid in cash.

More Permanent Stave Mill about 1940 When there was no large single tract of timber, stave mills were sometimes set up in a convenient location and the stave bolts were trucked into the mill yard. All the “bolts” were moved by hand from where the tree was cut to a drag cart, stacked on a truck, unloaded to the ground, stacked on a drag cart, and pulled into the mill before they were sawed.

Stave Mill about 1940

Unknown Help?? What is this operation. I never saw this operate.

Stave & Heading Mill 1957 The first mills on this location were diesel power unit similar to 1940’s picture. This is the 1 st all electric powered mill which allowed much better, more flexible layout. This mill still used all hand split bolts and operated into the mid 1960’s.

Labor intensive ’s Tree was dropped and cut into 40” lengths by 2 men using a 175lb 4 cycle chain saw. 2 to 6 men followed the cutters hand splitting the 40” lengths into stave bolts and loaded them onto drag carts. Drag carts were pulled to the road and left for the truck. Truck driver and helper ricked the bolts on the truck, drove to the mill yard, and stacked the bolts in endless 8’ high ricks. 2 men loaded the bolts back onto a drag cart and they were pulled up to the mill. There was no material handling machinery in the mill. 10 men did it all. 2 men on equalizer, barrel sawyer & helper, stave catcher, 2 edgers, 1 grader, 2 clean up. Clean up men carried equalized ends, cores, and edging strips by wheel barrow to a truck where they were loaded by 2 more men and trucked to a charcoal plant. Staves were ricked on a drag cart that was pulled to the stacking area and 2-3 men box stacked the staves and round stacked the heading. After air drying 3 men and a flat bed truck took down the stacks and loaded the staves on the truck, drove to a rail siding and carried the staves into a box car.

Then there was heading The drum sawed stave made no heading so it was necessary to saw heading as a separate operation. Heading was sawed from shorter bolts (20-26”) using a flat circle saw but the heading bolts were put on the mill yard the same way stave bolts were. The heading mill required only 6 men in the mill, sawyer, catcher, 2 edgers, grader, and clean up man. The mill(s) pictured was able to make about 2,000,000 pieces of staves and heading per year. When running full capacity and counting the timbering and shipping the mill employed about 200 hard working men.

No picture of the 1974 mill The old mill was torn down and a new drum sawed stave mill was installed to use logs and minimize labor. 10 men total could now cut from delivered logs and ship about 1,500,000 staves per year. No heading was produced. Labor was far more expensive than wood. No effort was made to maximize log yield. This mill was operated until 1982 when the company was prepared for liquidation.

Today With the rising cost of wood and the declining demand for staves/heading an evolution effort was started in 1984 to improve wood yield and reduce labor cost.

Some Thoughts Ohio Stave would probably not have survived if the bourbon stave demand had not bottomed in Wood cost, energy/transportation cost, and labor cost will be forever up. Invest in technology and machinery. One year ago we moved our wide band stave saw from ” to ” kerf. On the wood we sell each year that is $110, worth of wood that was NOT made into sawdust.