By JACK M. WILLIS
Journal Corresponden

The blasts from the steam whistles are silenced. No longer do they dictate an hour by hour way of life. The soot, fumes and cinders no longer descend out of a dull sky to permeate the ever laboring souls, and the interiors of the lookalike company housing. Everything reeked of depression. Stillness replaced the snorting and puffing Shay engines pulling in and offloading endless carloads of logs. The innumerable steel wheels of the lumber carriages no longer churn up perpetual clouds of talcum powder dust. Now non existent are the dissonant mill sounds assaulting the atmosphere, like the clanking of the jackladder chain hooking the errant logs retrieved from the mill pond, and hoisting them up to the second floor of the mill. This is where they became the main players in the various stages necessary to becoming merchantable lumber. Cutoff saws no longer lop off logs to a desired length prior to sawing into beams and boards: and the carriage piston is stilled, no longer pushing and shoving the carriage in an almost hypnotic to and fro motion. The opening and closing of the multiplicity of valves and gates no longer signal their endless operation by the hiss of steam generated by the boilers of the mill. Quieted are the cyclone fans which vacuumed up the spent sawdust and chips and propelled it though a maze of ductwork back to the steam generating boilers to be consumed as fuel. But, the loudest sound of all, the screeching of the one-foot wide bandsaw, called the "head rig", that rendered verbal communication impossible, is finally becalmed. All of these audible components of a corporate Deep South sawmill were stilled on June 20, 1935 when the Good Pine Lumber Company mill was virtually destroyed by fire.

Scrap iron dealers periodically ravaged the ruins of the mill for years. The Bodcaw Company utilized a portion of the 162-acre tract as a horse pasture. The horses were used to ride out their remaining acreage not disposed of by William "Little Will" Buchanan prior to his early death on August 30,1941 in Texarkana. He was the only heir apparent of his father William Buchanan, creator of the Buchanan dynasty, when he died in 1923. Thirty-eight years after "Little Will's" death, in 1979, the Buchanan heirs relinquished the last of their holdings to International Paper Company. After Will Buchanan had sold the Trout mill and lands associated with it in 1929, the new owners, the Frost interests changed the name to Louisiana Delta Lumber Company. They chose a particularly bad time to make this purchase because The Great Depression was beginning to sweep the land. Timber prices were at an all time low for almost ten years, but began to rise prior to World War II. The Frosts needed someone to begin harvesting their hardwood. Larkin O. Denton from Union Parish was tapped to perform the job.

The main focus of the Buchanan interests for 30 years had been on clear cutting the virgin yellow pine forests and accomplishing that as soon as possible. L.O. Denton moved into one of the gray painted company houses in 1939 and began the harvest of the hardwood timber. The Trout mill was converted to hardwood production, and a flooring mill was added.

Denton worked for La. Delta for about seven years then decided to go in the sawmill business for himself. The family moved east of Jena, near the overpass on US 84 in 1946, and L.O. Denton acquired a portion of the land once occupied by the old Tall Timber Lumber Company sawmill. On the site he built his own hardwood lumber operation, which he would continue to operate for almost thirty years. He sold out briefly at one time, but soon reassumed ownership and continued operations of the mill. His oldest son Terral became his woods foreman, and his middle son Billy Wayne became one of his lumber inspectors. His youngest son Bobby Denton, Is the focus here.

Bobby Gene Denton, Sr. was born in Union Parish on October 13, 1937. His forebears had been of hardy working stock, self-sustaining on their various farms. They tilled the soil, raised livestock, had orchards and vineyards and lived out the American dream. Even at a young age, Bobby desired to do the same, and began his long educational trek at Trout-Good Pine Elementary in 1943. This inauspicious educational beginning would culminate in his obtaining a Degree in Petroleum Engineering from Louisiana Tech in 1960. The "oil patch" had seemed for decades to operate in peaks and valleys; it was either feast or famine, boom or bust, and it picked now to be at one of its low ebbs upon his graduation, and jobs were virtually non-existent for a young PE at that time. Here he was classified 1-A by Selective Service, unemployed in the vocation of his choosing, so he opted for military service.

Upon being mustered out, Bobby went to work for Dowell, a division of Dow Chemical in Gainesville, Texas. He left Dowell to relocate to Patterson, Louisiana, where Mobile Oil Co employed him. He stayed with them until 1964 when he moved back to Jena to take a position with the Bodcaw Company, which had been formed to see after the remnants of the Buchanan heir's interests. He stayed with this company for ten years until resigning to go into the consulting business.

During his tenure at La.Tech, and being an independent sort, Bobby paid most of his way through college by working with contractors in the building trades around Jena. He learned the carpentry trade from Ivy Smith, a master carpenter, and electrical service installation and plumbing from J.W. Nix and others So, with his connections with the lumber industry, it was natural to go into the house construction business on his own, which he did. He labored at this trade on weekends and vacation time while employed by Bodcaw for ten years.

In 1973, Bobby felt it was time to finally pursue the vocation he had gone to college to prepare for, that of consulting in the oil production business. He put in a stint for a firm out of Monroe, and then launched out on his own. At one time he was the only oil production consultant in a geographic triangle formed by Natchez, Ms, to Alexandria, La. and up to Monroe, La. Then, in 1983 the oil industry started bottoming out again, culminating with him being totally devoid of clients in 1986. This more or less forced him to embrace a side line that had taken him back to his roots; that of farming and cattle raising.

When International Paper Company bought out the Bodcaw interests in 1979, they formed a new company division to handle sales of some of their newly acquired lands. It was called I P Real Estate, and they were only interested in selling lands they didn't feel were suited to growing trees. For years Bobby had been driving by and looking over the vast expanse which once contained the Good Pine Lumber Co. mill and appurtenances. Since oil prices were on the upswing, he now felt that he would like to initiate negotiations to purchase the property. Some oil leases he had acquired were paying nice dividends now, so he started discussions pertinent to that end every chance he got. He pointed out to the manager of I P Real Estate that the place was the personification of desolation; grown up in weeds, briars, brambles, saplings and the like. They firmly resisted his overtures at first, but In 1991 the company relented and sold him the property.

Bobby had a formidable task ahead of him, but he attacked it with his usual gusto. He had some heavy equipment, but he bought more. He hired a 'dozer operator, and with ASCS and SCS assistance he built several ponds on the property to facilitate his anticipated cattle herds. He hired a professional fencing contractor to erect fencing around the perimeter of the property. Then using engineering know-how, he had a series of cross fences built, all designed to funnel his cattle at the proper time, from any area of this acreage, into what he calls the "trap". This is the epicenter of his pasture care, cattle feeding and animal husbandry operations. The first building has electricity and contains his pumps, herbicide mixtures and equipment for spraying his 162 acres of pastures; also tools for building and maintaining over 20 miles of fence, on this mini-ranch and two others located in Catahoula Parish, all totaling over 1200 acres of pasture and 400 acres of woodland.

Next to this storage building, he has two large tin-topped barns. One holds innumerable rolls of round bale hay. The other barn is surrounded and interwoven with hundreds of feet of pipe and net wire fencing. The fence was built out of old surplus oil field pipe that had seen better days. This barn also has an overhang projected out over the main pen and squeeze chute of the "trap" area, where worming, castration, dehorning practices, and loading and unloading cattle or feed can be carried on, even in inclement weather. This barn also has a huge bin that revealed a recent delivery of twenty tons of cottonseed. Two nearby cone bottom storage tanks have been filled up with shelled corn. Bobby Denton is not playing the role of the Aesop grasshopper, but rather emulating the industrious ant in anticipation of a possible hard winter.

Preparatory to composition of this feature I asked Bobby if I could accompany him on his rounds on a typical day. He obliged, picked me up at seven o'clock, and we were off. In two hours we had covered over 50 miles, while he looked after several oil leases he operates. Then it was back to his pride and joy, the mini-ranch in Good Pine.

He spent a lot of time opening and closing gates as we toured his pastures, and ponds, one of which is the main mill pond of the old mill. We looked over his Simmental Black cattle. He's been breeding his own replacement heifers for his herd for over 12 years now. He promotes the Fleckvieh bloodline, which translates out to more desirable characteristics of typical beef breeds like Beefmaster and Brangus. The manifestations of these traits are broader, stockier, shorter legged animals. The meat is much in demand because it marbles out much better than most other breeds.

A cell phone call from Bobby's lovely wife Gladys reminded him of an appointment almost forgotten. We happened to be stopped on the road leading out of his mini-ranch, and were looking at his orchard, when the call came. While he was on the phone, it dawned on me of where we had stopped. We were exactly in front of a now vacant house space where I was born some 65 years ago.

As we hastened to leave, and Bobby was closing the final gate, I commended him on what a transformation his diligence, long hours and hard backbreaking work had wrought in the old mill site. The lush pastures, fat, blooded cattle, functional fencing and outbuildings all bespoke success. He summed up one of his main goals in life when he stated very simply. "I love to take something someone else has abandoned and make it work". And that Bobby has done very well...

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