Marshall McClung
One of the early lumber companies to begin operations in Graham County was the Kanawha Lumber Company, whose management was from Staunton, Va.
Clara Vee Denton was kind enough to share a history of the company, written by Robert B. Barker in 1956 for Marjorie Walker Freel of Andrews.
Kanawha operated two Climax engines to pull the log cars on the Snowbird Valley Railroad. The railroad ran from Andrews, through Little Snowbird and to Long Bottoms. A number of local men worked for Kanawha, including Frank Wilkey, Jim Wilkey, Will Patterson, Joe Lovin, Rube Rogers, Wiley Underwood, Troy Hyde and my grandfather Add McClung.
Kanawha began operations here in 1900 when they purchased 100,000 feet of logs on West Buffalo from J.A. Cook and J.W. Eller. A wagon road was constructed from Webb Mill Creek to Walker Fields, across Atoah Gap, down Little Snowbird to Big Snowbird, and through Hardslate Gap to West Buffalo.
Kanawha sold its sawmill to W.W. Penrod, who had sawed for Mark E. Cozad of Andrews. Cozad owned some timber land on West Buffalo.
A sawmill was set up on Little Snowbird at the John Teesateskie fields. Timber in the Eller Cove area was purchased from John H. Eller. During the Eller Cove logging operation, a wooden tram road was built that ran
up Eller Cove.
Another sawmill was brought from Andrews by way of the Cozad wagon road through Cozad Gap to Birch Springs. The Barker wagon road ran from Andrews to West Buffalo. It was surveyed by Will Sandlin.
Sam Lovin – who was my mother’s grandfather – and Fred Ghormley cleared the right of way from Atoah Gap to Walker Fields.
Around 1905, Kanawha built a narrow gauge railroad from Andrews and up Webb Mill Creek to Cozad Gap, and onto Birch Springs and connected to the railroad on Little Snowbird. John Saunooke and Will West with a crew of Cherokees from the Yellow Hill section of Cherokee built the railroad bed with picks and shovels. At the John Teesateskie fields, a round house, boarding house and store was built.
A number of disasters plagued operations, including:
* Heavy rains washed part of the railroad and sawmill away;
* A dynamite blast killed two men at Pheasant Top;
* A fire in Andrews burned a store and warehouse belonging to the company;
* A fire at Birch Springs destroyed a log loader, logging camp, livestock, tools and a large deck of logs;
* A fire on Staggerweed in March 1910 destroyed over 500,000 thousand board feet of logs;
* An explosion of a huge quantity of dynamite and blasting powder at Bear Creek on Little Snowbird on Christmas Day 1909 tore the side of a mountain off and was so loud it was heard in Robbinsville.
Marshall McClung is the historical columnist for The Graham Star. He can be reached via email, mcclungs@email.com.