LUMBER: The Peckerwoods

Deep in the oak and pine timberlands of the Southwest, a headsaw whined through the soft June night. Now & again the hooting of horned owls broke into the steady cough of the gasoline engine, the dull banging of the sawmill carriage, the slap, slap of cut slabs. At dawn, the fireflies and the old crew left the sawmill and the day gang took over.

In the timber stands of Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, this nocturnal scene was common last week. More than a thousand “peckerwood” (portable) sawmills had suddenly appeared and gone into frenzied production. The piles of lumber around them, and the permanent mills, covered acres (see cut). But little of it was moving legitimately into the lumber-starved housing industry; it was apparently being hoarded to cash in on high-prices if OPA ceilings came off.

The total extent of the cache is estimated at 400 to 500 million board feet, less than prewar’s normal stock, but far above recent stocks. From Logansport, La. to Broken Bow, Okla. the lumber was piling up. Lumbermen said they were “curing it.” But up till a few months ago, many of the yards had shipped it green. Said one Texas lumberman after flying over the area: “It looked like there were acres of lumber around some of those mills.”

And as lumber piled up, houses all over the U.S. stood half-finished; black-market lumber prices soared.

In Pittsburgh, lumber was being bought at 30% over the legal price. Boston builders have to pay from $200 to $500 per 1,000 feet for oak flooring; ceiling price is $150. But the peckerwoods have plenty.