A couple of years ago our constant search for Ozarks-related antique ephemera turned up a rare graphic poster for the Missouri Lumber and Mining Company. Condition was a little rough with chipped edges and creases, but the graphics are strong and the subject is hard to find. This was exciting! Much of the chapter, “Paradise: Lost, Repossessed and Regained,” in Mystery of the Irish Wilderness about the lumbering industry in the Ozarks after the Civil War, was based on a 47-page article in American Lumberman (1903) recounting the history of this very company.

The company was incorporated by Elijah Bishop Grandin and a few Pennsylvania oilman friends in 1880 with the specific goal of monetizing (to put it in contemporary terms) the yellow pine forest of southeast Missouri. They came to cut, saw and ship out the boards to build the burgeoning cities and towns in the expanding post-Civil War economy. To manage the ambitious enterprise, Grandin hired 24-year-old John Barber White, “to work out his plans and to found a commercial commonwealth.”

Most employees came from out of state. Many had experience in the northern white pine mills. Some locals worked in the woods, but usually on a contract basis. Had Hogan’s Irish immigrants somehow endured the war, it’s likely many would have been hired.

The first mill proved too small for the volume of logs they were cutting, so a larger one was built.

“The new mill was built at Grandin, Mo., ten miles southwest of the small mill … This mill was built in 1887 and 1888 at a small, deep spring lake, a valuable natural mill site in the heart of the great pinery.” By 1894, the new sawmill ran night and day, producing a daily average of 180,000 board feet, and was said to be the largest in the United States.

American Lumberman (1903)

The town of Grandin, named of course for E.B. Grandin, was built to provide goods and services to the company and its workers. “Every business in Grandin, except a barbershop and an undertaker, was owned by the corporation. All but the hotel turned a profit. When important customers came to tour the facilities they stayed free of charge. … The company built Catholic, Baptist, Methodist and Congregational churches for the workers. Unattended, the Catholic church became the library.” (MIW, page 92-93)

Looking at the remains of Grandin today, now virtually abandoned, it’s hard to imagine the bustling little burg at the height of its population and economic activity.