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Alexander Gilmer Lumber Company

Remlig was a sawmill town located about two and a half miles southeast of Brookeland, in Jasper County. The Alexander Gilmer Lumber Company built a large mill there in 1905 to cut the company's holdings of 48,000 acres of virgin long leaf yellow pine. The mill was reported by the American Lumberman in February 1905 to be slated for a June start-up date, but the Southern Industrial and Lumber Review reported in May 1906 that the mill was not “finished and in operation” until January 1, 1906. Initially projected to cut 75,000 feet daily, with band and circular rigs it was rated at 150,000 feet per day. The mill's construction was supervised by C.H. Williams, the popular mill architect. The mill at Remlig was logged by two 37-ton Shay locomotives and steam skidders and loaders. The skidders and loaders could reach and drag in logs on each side of the track from a distance of 1,000 feet. Of the 150 men who worked there, 140 were unskilled, drawing $1.55 to $1.75 per day in 1914 for a ten-hour day. Payday was every second Wednesday of the month, paid in check 100% redeemable. The woods crew lived in town, leaving on the train at six, quitting the woods at five, and arriving back in town between six and six-thirty. Blacks made up about fifty percent of the work force. The company $828.25 in taxes to Jasper County in 1908. The mill was dismantled after stumpage was depleted. The Gulf Coast Lumberman reported in 1924 that the Remlig plant was making its final sawing. Early entries may place this mill at Brookeland, Pineland, or Bronson. The name Remlig was derived by spelling Gilmer backwards, since the town of Gilmer, Upshur County, was already established. Remlig had a population of 800 in May 1906. Rent for a company house at Remlig was five cents a room per day. The Gulf Coast Lumberman reported in

(Continued in Interpretative Commentary section)

Mill Details

Alpha Numeric Key:

SB

Owner Name

Alexander Gilmer, Harry S. Filson, Dr. J. Butler

Location

Remlig, two and a half miles southeast from the Santa Fe mainline at Brookeland

County

Jasper

Years in Operation:

20

Start Year:

1906

End Year:

1925

Decades:

1900-1909,1910-1919,1920-1929

Period of Operation:

Officially began operations on January 1, 1906; company town dismantled in 1925.

Town:

Remlig , near Brookeland

Company Town:

1

Peak Town Size:

For Brookeland: 144 in 1905; 800 in 1906

Mill Pond:

1

Mill Type
Product
Power Source
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