A Peek into Summers County’s Past: Meadow River Lumber Company

RAINELLE W.Va. (Hinton News) – Editor’s note: “It is time for another edition of A Peek into Summers County’s Past. Each week, local history collector William Jones discusses pieces from his collection and their historical significance. In this edition, Jones is stepping a bit outside the county to talk about the Meadow River Lumber Company.”

This week’s piece takes place just a little jaunt to the northeast of Summers County in the town of Rainelle, West Virginia. The Meadow River Lumber Company was a very large employer in this area back in the day. Not only did it have ties to Summers County for being a very large job supplier in the area but it also produced lumber and furniture. It was also the world’s largest producer of women’s wooden shoe heels and flooring, as well as other wooden products such as moldings and trim.

During the beginning of the 1900s two brothers, Thomas and John Raine organized what would later become one of the top names in its field, the Meadow River Lumber Company, and purchased 32,000 acres of timber in the western part of Greenbrier County. It was here they built their first sawmill in the town of Rainelle, West Virginia, which would later be named after them. They also formed a 20-mile railroad to work in production with their mill.”

Thomas Raine was the first president of the company and served until 1912. It was then that his brother John became president until 1938. Howard Gray was then president until 1961. Howard’s son served as the final president until Meadow River Lumber Company was sold to Georgia-Pacific in 1970.

The original mill that started the company burned in 1924 and was then rebuilt in 1925, having three nine-foot band saws. The lumber company could average 110,000 board feet of lumber per day. It was the largest hardwood mill of its kind in the world at that time. During its “heyday,” an average of 20,000,000 board feet of lumber was sawed per year. 1928 was its greatest year, seeing 31.6 million board feet of lumber sawed. 

The lumber company operated a series of lumber camps that were built on railroad cars that could easily be moved to new timber sites. During its peak of operation, the company would purchase lumber from other coal and land companies as well.

The boards that were sawed in their mill were stacked in 40-foot tall stacks to dry and then it was placed in one of their kilns for 14 days so it would be ready to be sold or processed into one of the many products that Meadow River produced. This was a very dangerous job. Over the years I can recall my uncle Paul Canterbury telling countless stories of Meadow River Lumber Company, his father Kenneth Canterbury retired after having been one of the men that stacked the lumber. So he had heard stories all of his life about Meadow River and especially how dangerous this specific job was.

My Great Great Uncle Dolan Kirby also worked at Meadow River. He worked there for 29 years, and after it was purchased by Georgia Pacific in 1970 he continued to work for them until 1983. Overall, he retired with 42 years of service with Meadow River and their counterpart Georgia Pacific. Even after retirement, he would travel to three other Georgia Pacific mills to fix issues they were having.

Many people aren’t aware of this, but the lumber company operated a furniture plant until World War ll and a planing mill where items such as baseboards, moldings and stair treads were produced. I had never known about Meadow River having produced furniture until my friend John Clay, who is deceased now and was a fellow lover of antiques and history, gave me the piece of lumber you see in the photos.

It is part of a headboard for a bed that was built by the furniture plant. “Chubby” as I called him, gave it to me because of the brass plaque that is attached to it which reads, “The Meadow River Lumber Company Flooring Rainelle, W.VA. Trim Cream of Appalachian Hardwoods”. It can be seen in the photo with a pair of wooden heels. He also gave me a piece of flooring from the mill. It is stamped “Meadow River.” This fact about this piece of this story relates to Summers County more specifically. If a house was built in this county between the first part of the 1900s to the 1960s there is a good chance the hardwood flooring came from Meadow River Lumber Company since they were one of the largest producers of hardwood flooring in the world.

In restoring a bedroom floor in my grandmother’s home that will soon become “The Hines Boarding House 2.0.” After popping up the flooring that was bad we discovered that the flooring in a 1950s ranch-style home in Pence Springs, Summers County was floored with flooring that was produced in Rainelle. My father recently got me a piece of furniture that was made in their furniture plant that is still intact.

There is a large oak apothecary cabinet that used to sit in the back of the dining room at the Pence Springs Hotel. When the property became The Greenbrier Academy For Girls they removed it and placed it in storage. Dad got it for me before the school closed this past March and we are going to use it in the living room of grandma’s house. It originally came from the Rexall Drug Store in Alderson and was located on the first floor of the large three-story brick bank building on the Greenbrier side of the river.

So there are most likely pieces of furniture sitting in Summers County that were built by this division of the company. The flooring division could produce around one million board feet per month. Since it was the largest company of its nature in the world it is no wonder houses in Summers County were not only built with lumber from this company but floored with their flooring.

Lastly and probably the least known fact about this business is they also had a shoe heel plant. Where it produced between four and six million wooden heels for shoes per year. There is a chance that if you, your mother or grandmother wore shoes with wooden heels they could have been made in Rainelle. I recently, just in the past month, purchased the two wooden heels you see here from a local thrift store. They read “R L Co. Rainelle, W.Va.” I had looked for a pair of these for decades, and when I saw wooden heels lying on the counter and picked them up I couldn’t believe what they said. You just never know what you may find lying around.

If you would like to share a story from the area’s history, send an email to news@hintonnews.com.