The Shannon County Film Digitization Project -- Camera Roll 121

Camera roll 121 is one of four rolls (119, 120, 121, 122) containing an interview with Lon Hogan, who, at 97, was the oldest resident of Shannon County. This was the second of two interviews with Hogan. It was recorded November 3, 1978. The first interview, filmed August 26, 1978, is on rolls 054, 057, 058, 059, and 060 of this collection. Both interviews are firsthand accounts of life in Shannon County during the heyday of the timber industry. Hogan was born and raised on a farm near Willow Springs, Missouri. In 1897, moved to Birch Tree, Missouri, where he worked in the Cordz-Fisher Lumber Company sawmill. When Cordz-Fisher closed its mill, Hogan worked in the hub mill at Fishertown, a company town built and run by the Ozark Land and Lumber Company, and became an entrepreneur on the side opening a restaurant in Fishertown and a photography business in nearby Winona. After OL&L closed its mill, Hogan moved to West Eminence where he worked for the Missouri Lumber and Mining Company in its sawmill. Hogan spent much of his free time photographing events and social life in the towns, workers at the mills, and anything else that caught his fancy. Many of the photographs documenting the lumber mill era in Shannon County were taken by Hogan. Both Hogan interviews cover a wide range of topics, from his early years on the farm to the closing of the mills. Although he suffered from a mild palsy, his mind was sharp and clear. He often inserts small details and brief allusions to people, places, companies, and customs too numerous to reference, but which lend rich texture to the interview and provide valuable bits of information. A good example is segment four on this roll, "Pine knots for the locomotives." In roll 121, Hogan talks about the harvesting of timber, the waste at the mills, the way land was allotted to the loggers, the denseness of the forests, burning off the clear-cut land, and collecting pine knots for the locomotives. He also talks about two of his sidelines, building boats and photography. This ...