Milling Around Highlands

Written By: Mary Jane McCall | Issue: 2017/01 - Winter

In the mid ‘70s James Shepherd moved from Colombia, South America, to accept a position as principal at Highlands School. 

His response to how he liked Highlands still stands out in my mind: “It’s great, but I’ve never seen so many trees!” 

Trees have long been one of our greatest resources, providing us with a source of pride and revenue. From the late 1800s until the 1950s our trees supported a thriving lumber industry which supplied resources for local building and a livelihood for many families in Highlands and surrounding communities.

The earliest sawmill in our area was built by William Dobson before the town existed.  He owned the property that Samuel Kelsey bought to found Highlands in 1875.  Arthur House built the first sawmill within the new town on Mill Creek in 1877.  This mill was later owned by John Jay Smith from 1886 until 1940.  Another sawmill was built by Charles Boynton in 1884 farther downstream behind his house (today’s Main Street Inn), and it functioned until 1905.  In the early 1900s, Will Cleaveland had a planing shop, also on Mill Creek (where Mountain Brook Center is today), and installed a dry kiln to dry a portion of the sawn wood and mill it into windows and doors. 

Richard Cobb had a smaller sawmill below Highlands Country Club at the head of Sequoyah Lake, which was also utilized by many locals who brought in their own logs to be milled for use in the construction of their homes and buildings.  In addition to the sawmill, he also had a much-in-demand grist mill where many local farmers had a portion of their annual corn crop processed into cornmeal.  Frank Norton had a small sawmill on Hicks Road where he sawed for locals as well.

Improved means of transportation in the 1930s ushered in the era of more commercially-oriented sawmills.  Eugene Wood started E. C. Wood Lumber Company with a sawmill on the lake at what is now Highlands Falls Country Club.  The start of these commercial sawmills coincided with the blight that hit our area’s chestnut trees.  As the trees were dying, the government started selling boundaries of chestnut timber for logging.  Recognizing the potential for growth, Wood Lumber Co. bought a boundary on Brush Creek and moved their mill there, logging and milling timber for Genett Lumber Company in Asheville.  Lumber was trucked daily to Lake Toxaway, loaded onto boxcars and transported to Asheville and beyond.  

Chestnut was considered a core wood and was used by companies to build furniture, which was then covered with aamore valuable woods.  Additionally, the bark from the trees was peeled and packed at the mill and sold locally for use in the home construction industry as siding.  You’ll still see this siding on many older homes in our area. 

When the Brush Creek boundary was exhausted, the mill was moved to a new boundary further towards Franklin at Deal Cove.  From there they moved to their permanent location on Shortoff Road between where the Shortoff Baptist Church and the soccer fields are today. 

Production was in its heyday, and Wood Lumber purchased its largest boundary at Rabun Bald. Bigger tracts meant more jobs, and during this time they employed approximately 30 people performing various jobs at the boundary and at the mill, as well as transporting the raw materials and the finished product. 

During the World War II years the Ravenels owned a primeval forest on what is now Wildcat Cliffs Country Club and they sold that timber boundary to Champion Paper Fiber Company and Powell Lumber Company, both of Canton, North Carolina.  Wood Lumber logged and processed the timber from this boundary for Champion and Powell.  Champion took the hemlock and other soft woods to process into paper.  Powell took the hardwoods and demand was such that they opened their own sawmill on Highway 106 on land now owned by Old Edwards Club (formerly Old Creek Lodge).  Wood Lumber operated this mill for Powell Lumber in addition to their mill at Shortoff. 

The 1950s saw the end of the timber industry in Highlands.  The tracts of large timber had been exhausted, and processing the smaller timber resulted in less product for the same amount of work so profits were dwindling.  Eugene Wood passed away and his son Vic, only 18 years old at the time but already a seasoned veteran of the business, operated Wood Lumber before deciding to close the sawmill.

However, the sawmill tradition lives on as the lure of the timber has called to many who operated smaller sawmills.  Walter Wilson operated one on Mack Wilson Road for several years, and George Schmitt ran one on Walkingstick Road, which he has recently reopened with Eric Fielding as Bigcreek Sawmill.