Remembering the mill days

In a vacant lot near 3rd and Thomas Ave in Davis, not a sign of any past structure can be seen. But at one time it seems to have been the site of Worden Hotel. Long since burnt and removed, the Worden Hotel was a favorite of spelunkers in the 50's, as this photo suggests. On June 17, 1958, Mr. Riley Worden sat down with reps from WVU for an interview about how things were back in Davis' boom days. Here is a brief extract of his thoughts on the Babcock mill, which was located along the Blackwater, today the site of the Town of Davis' Riverfront Park and the Riverwalk tract.

Transcript of recorded interview:
Lambert: When were the mills built in Davis?
Worden: Gam Rumbarger, he started his mill in ’(18)85.
Lambert: Where was it located?
Worden: Right down here across from the depot, where the mill always stood. Right below this big bridge down here, you can see a lot of the concrete stuff down there.
Lambert: Now tell us about the operation of the mill and the cutting of timber and the floating of the timber down the Blackwater, Mr. Worden.
Worden: They had no log trains in here then and most of the logs was floated down the river. Mr. A. Thompson and his son, Frank, floated the logs down to the sawmill down here. They had three splash dams. They had one on Sand Run and one on Little Blackwater and the big one up here 2 ½ miles above Davis, and all the logs came into that dam and then they would open the booms for about an hour and let the water bring the logs on down to the mill out here. While Rumbarger’s were in here they only took out the timber, the cherry lumber. They hauled that in from Canaan Valley in big sleds. They didn’t float that, they hauled that.
Lambert: That was done during the winter season.
Worden: Yes, during the winter season.
Lambert: …and the Rumbargers sold their plant to the Thompsons.
Worden: They sold out to the Blackwater Boom and Lumber Company and so the Blackwater Boom and Lumber Company bought out Gam Rumbarger and then Mr. Thompson came in here, he bought a lot of timber up in the swampy land here and he was going to float it down the river too. Mr. Hamilton knew there would be a lot of trouble sorting their logs and Thompson’s logs down here at the mill. Sortin’ them out of course, they stamped them all on the end. Then Mr. Hamilton, when they bought Rumbarger out, Rumbarger then went to Elkins and put in a mill up around Mill Creek. Then Mr. Thompson came in and he built a mill down below town here a mile, before Babcock put in a hardwood mill, but he just had the framework up and that is what started Blackwater Boom and Lumber Company to sell out to Mr. Thompson because they would have all this trouble sorting the logs. Then they sold that mill to Beaver Creek Lumber Company up here. The man who put it in was Jag Allen from Hagerstown and they took all the timber out back on the land.
Lambert: That was on Beaver Creek?
Worden: That was Beaver Creek. I was just a boy when they bought that mill. I was seven years old when they bought that mill and I was five years old when I came to Davis.
Lambert: How many mills were built in Davis?
Worden: Well, the Blackwater Mill burned down twice and they rebuilt it and the Beaver Creek never did burn down. That ran until they had all the timber, mostly all, cut out and they only took the best timber. There was so much timber cut in those days out in this section, at Pendleton Run, out there. A man named Burger had a mill down at Pendleton Run that is 2 ½ miles from here, and he had a big mill down at Douglas. They only took the best timber. The hemlock lumber sawed only brought $6 a thousand and the best of spruce only brought $18 a thousand. Mr. Burger cut this big timber down anywhere from 4 to 5 foot across the tree and just took the bark and left the timber lay and rot, and they did that all over this country.
Lambert: Now tell us a little more Mr. Worden about Rumbarger cutting the cherry and walnut and bringing it in on bobsleds.
Worden: They did that for a couple of years. The snow in those days came along in October and it stayed until April. It never left then the way it does now. It might have been because of the big timber being here, what kept the winters cold. You know back years ago up at your home the winters were colder and lasted longer.
Lambert: What conveyance would they use to bring the sleds in? Would they have horses?
Worden: They used horses. When Mr. Thompson came in here he brought some oxen in with him from up in Ridgeway (PA). They used the oxen where they couldn’t use horses, in the swamps and skidded the logs out with them. I forget just what year it was they came in.
Lambert: Tell us about Mr. Babcock buying the Thompson’s out, Mr. Worden.
Worden: Mr. Babcock came in from Pittsburgh. Him and his two brothers came in and they were here just a few days buying Mr. Thompson out. When they bought Mr. Thompson out they put in a lot of improvement on the mill and then they brought the trees in, the whole tree and tried it. It would take two of the long flat cars to haul the trees in and they had a jig saw across from the mill where they sawed this up into logs instead of hauling the log in. They ran that for a couple of years but that wasn’t a success so they went back to cutting the logs anywhere from 14 feet up to 20 feet. Mr. Babcock had brought in the skidders which Mr. Thompson had never used. They took the timber out of the Canyon with these skidders where Mr. Thompson was going to build a mill down there in a place called Lime Rock. He was going to cut his timber in the Canyon and float it down Lime Rock to his mill down there. Of course, all the timber in high grounds he brought that in on bob trains or he couldn’t have gotten it out of the Canyon by trains. Mr. Babcock had put in a lot of switchbacks down the Canyon and took quite a bit out, what he didn’t get out with skidders. Then he took most of the timber out on both sides of the Canyon on the right hand side of the Western Maryland Railroad, what when down to Hendricks. He took that all out on skidders across the railroad over on the other mountain and that is where they dropped them. Then they loaded them up with loaders and loaded the log trains.
Lambert: About how many camps did they have in Canaan Valley when they were operating in the Valley?
Worden: Mr. Thompson had about five lumber caps and then Mr. Babcock, after he got up in there, he took out so much timber out of the sawmill with skidders, he had in there three or four camps up there. Then they kept on building the railroad they bought a lot of timber over in Grant County. They bought enough timber to run twenty years over there. Mr. Viering was a wood superintendent for Mr. Babcock and he was coming in from Stony River Dam one evening. It was raining and the old gentleman had a straight connected engine and when he got at the top of the hill he didn’t put the brakes on quick enough so the engine got away from him. He had five cars on, flat cars. The men on the train was a fireman, a conductor and another man. They jumped off the train and Mr. Viering came down into the lowlands at a pretty bad curve and the engine turned over and killed him. It buried him in the mud. Well, after that Mr. Babcock then sold all his timber out over in Grant County to people that had small portable sawmills. He quit business then, so that finished up our lumber business. If Mr. Viering could have only lived, our sawmill could have run 20 years longer than what it did.