Goodyear Yellow Pine Company Photographs

Collection

Identifier: M134

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

This collection consists of forty-five photographs taken by New Orleans Photographer John N. Teunisson between the years 1918 and 1920. The photographs show the operations and facilities of the Rosa Lumber Company of Picayune, Mississippi, which became a part of the Goodyear Yellow Pine Company. The photographs also show the last stages of construction and the early operations of the new Goodyear Yellow Pine Company mill, also located in Picayune. Six photographs show Camp Anderson, a temporary settlement for loggers. One of the photographs reveals the use of duplex "houses on wheels" which were actually railroad cars. Other photographs of the mill ponds, various types of mill buildings, machinery and equipment, the planing mill, lumber sorting and railroad car loading areas, lumber transport vehicles and lumber drying and storage yards.

Five of the photographs are oversized, being two or three panels wide. All others are approximately 7 1/2" by 9 1/2".

Dates

circa 1918-1920

Creator

Goodyear Yellow Pine Company (1917-1950) (Organization)
Teunisson, John N., 1869-1959 (Photographer, Person)

Conditions Governing Access

Noncirculating; available for research.

Conditions Governing Use

This collection may be protected from unauthorized copying by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code).

Biographical / Historical

The Goodyear Yellow Pine Company was formed in 1917 when L.O. (Lucius) Crosby and his associates exercised an option on the John Blodgett timber holdings in Pearl River County. Crosby, with financial backing from the International Harvester Company, then bought R.J. Williams's Rosa Lumber Company located in Picayune, Mississippi. That operation was enlarged and modernized when the Goodyear mill was built the next year. Crosby had a half interest in the venture, with Lamont Rowlands and the C.A. Goodyear interests holding the other half. The Goodyears sold out their interest in 1920, and in 1929 Crosby purchased Rowlands' interests to assume complete control of the company. During the 1920's, the boom period for the southern pine lumber industry, the Goodyear Yellow Pine Company had as many as five mills operating in southern Mississippi. Under L.O. Crosby's direction, the company became one of the first lumber companies in the state to institute programs to rehabilitate the cut-over timber lands. Agricultural developments such as peach, lemon, and satsuma orchards were planted, but most suffered setbacks during the Depression. Tung nut trees were also planted during this period with the hope that the tung oil industry would prosper in southern Mississippi.

During the depressed economic times of the 1930's, L.O. Crosby, with support from the International Harvester Company, instituted aid and subsistence programs for his mill employees and the people of Picayune.

In 1934 a new lumber operation known as the Crosby Lumber and Manufacturing Company was built at Stevenson, Mississippi. Three years later Crosby Naval Stores was created to utilize pine stumps to manufacture resins, chemicals and naval stores. During World War II both the Goodyear Yellow Pine Company and the tung oil operations prospered. A wirebound box plant was added in 1946 and a veneer mill was built in 1947. In 1950 the name was changed to the Crosby Forest Products Company and it has continued to expand its product base into chemicals and paint manufacturing. During the 1960's the wirebound box plant was sold and later closed, and an agreement for the management of Crosby timberlands was signed with the St. Regis Paper Company.