Book DescriptionThis collection of black-and-white images conveys the story of human impact on Mississippi's forests from the pioneer era to the present. Photographs gleaned from public and private archives, tell a visual tale of the development of Mississippi's forest industries. Historic locomotives course through the woods, oxen drag big timber over rutted terrain, and lookouts perch atop Forest Service towers eyeing the horizon for telltale signs of fire. Photos of life in a portable logging camp reveal early hospitals, lumber company stores, mobile homes, and the advancing technology of logging machinery. The hatchet and torch give way to the cross-cut saw, the steam-driven loaders, the gas chain saws, and eventually the bulldozer and the Buschcombine. Portraits of the major players in the industry's investment and development provide a human face to the powerful history of Mississippi forestry. The soft pulp lumber used to crate ammunition and to build many hastily...