EDWARD BALL AND THE PULPWOOD ERA

George M. Cole and John E. Ladson III
Aucilla Research Institute

Even though the Great Timber Boom was over, the impact of that era was not. During the boom no thought had been given to future timber operations. Had a more practical approach to a removal of the long leaf pines and cypress been used, reforestation would have been automatic. Instead, large barren tracts of land bordering the Aucilla River and its tributaries remained. Some of the vacant land was replanted in attempts to feed the lumber mills that had been constructed during the boom. But as the beginning of the Great Depression reduced demand, most of the mills began to close due both to the depression and insufficient timber supply.
But in the throes of the Great Depression in 1932, a development occurred that greatly changed the landscape. Georgia chemist, Dr. Charles Herty, who had also developed the widely used process for collection of pine pitch during the turpentine era in 1903, developed a chemical process to make paper from Southern pine. Humans had long been making paper – dating from when the ancient Egyptians began making papyrus about 3000 BC. Nevertheless, processes that were used before Herty’s research, involved the use of the dwindling supply of slow-growing hardwood trees from more northern area. Because of the high sap content in faster-growing pinewood, that wood could not be used for paper. Herty’s development involved a method for treating the wood with an acidic sulfite solution to digest the wood and thus allow its use in paper manufacturing.

Dr. Charles Herty
(Florida Memories photograph)

The impact of the discovery was immediate. Land owners throughout the southeast, including the Aucilla River area, began planting fast-growing slash pine for paper production as pulp mills sprang up throughout the South. By the mid-1950s, it was reported by the Taylor County, Florida Chamber of Commerce that 12,500,000 slash pine seedlings had been planted in the county in a single year

Slash Pine
(Florida Memories photograph)

Initially, the pulpwood industry around the Aucilla area was primarily associated with the St. Joe Paper Company. That company was founded by Edward Ball who had actually begun buying large tracts of land in the North Florida area over a decade earlier with funds that he and his brother-in-law, Alfred Dupont, had earned investing in defaulted banks during the great depression. Ball became the driving force behind the deployment of the DuPont fortune in Florida. In 1936, he founded the St. Joe Paper Company and constructed a huge pulp mill in Port St. Joe, Florida, the first in the region. The company ultimately had title to over a million acres of land in the Florida Gulf region.

St. Joe Paper Company Pulpwood Mill
(Florida Memories photograph)

Large amounts of the lands around the lower Aucilla and Wacissa rivers were part of St. Joe’s land holdings. The sight of the large yellow concrete monuments marking land section corners of the company’s holdings were once a familiar sight throughout the region. In addition to the cultivation and harvesting of slash pine on those lands, considerable harvesting of sable palm occurred. Up until the acquisition of those lands by the State, palm harvesters paid a monthly fee to St. Joe and harvested unlimited palms at their discretion.
Variously described as energetic, shrewd, determined, eccentric, combative and a courtly Southern gentleman, “Mr. Ed.” was all that and more. Often controversial, his tenure in Florida, circa 1920’s to 1981, placed him among the state’s most powerful business and political figures. Raised in Virginia and quitting school at age 13, his strong work ethic led him toward financial success even before his sister became Alfred I. du Pont’s third wife, and he became du Pont’s trusted advisor. A colorful character, his eccentricities were legendary.
Considered miserly by some, he lived primarily in a modest suite of rooms in the Robert Meyer Hotel in Jacksonville across the street from his office. He eschewed ostentatious personal wealth and carefully scrutinized the expense accounts of the business entities he oversaw. Ball married in 1933 and approached the union like a business deal, demanding everything in writing including a prenuptial agreement with 19 provisions detailing the couple’s wedded lifestyle down to a definition of “nagging.” As might be expected the relationship was less-than blissful, such that his wife sued for divorce ten years later. Ball fought her for six years all the way to the Florida Supreme Court, claiming he was due an annulment because she had misrepresented her ability to have children. In 1949, he finally agreed to pay her $250,000 in alimony.
His weekday ritual included a 5:30 p.m. gathering of his business associates and buddies at his office in the Florida National Bank building. Cocktails began with his signature toast, “Confusion to the Enemy.” While decried by some today as a “robber baron”, segregationist, and right-wing extremist, “Mr. Ed” was a product of his era and built an empire of banking, railroad, manufacturing and real estate interests. Of that wealth accruing to him personally he bequeathed the majority to the philanthropic Neumours Foundation. His ties to the Aucilla River area were rooted mainly in St. Joe’s land and timber holdings as well as his behind-the-scenes political involvement as the leader of Florida’s rural “Pork Chop Gang” coalition, who met regularly at Raeburn Horne’s fish camp on the river at Nutall Rise. He is also identified with the general area as the developer of the Wakulla Springs resort and tourist attraction.

Edward Ball
(Florida Memories Photograph)

In addition to St. Joe Paper, the other large land owner of pine lands in the area as the pulpwood era began was Brooks-Scanlon Lumber Company which was the largest land owner in the state in the 1920s. But as the lumber industry faded due to the diminishing supply of timber, the Buckeye Cellulose Corporation, a subsidiary of Proctor and Gamble, purchased the Brooks Scanlon mill site and land holdings which amounted to nearly 600,000 acres. Those lands have changed ownership over the years but are still largely intact today.
Both Buckeye and St. Joe engaged in silvicultural practices including drainage projects which were detrimental to the Aucilla and Wacissa Rivers and abutting wetlands. Fortunately, many of such practices are now been prohibited by conservation initiatives. Even more protective, much of the environmentally sensitive riverine area around the lower Aucilla and Wacissa has been conveyed to the State and is now part of the 50,000 acre Aucilla River Wildlife Management Area.