east texas history

East Texas Loggers, 1930s

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“Logging Team with HorsePower Engines,” by Stephanie Khattak. Acrylic monotype print. 20X26 on paper.

The early prosperity of East Texas started with trees, and the region had (and still has) plenty of those. There’s a reason I named my work “The Pine Curtain Project.” The part of East Texas where I am from is dense with pines – The Piney Woods. It is so much a part of the region’s identity that even today, the local university’s mascot is a Lumberjack, a popular local coffee shop is Java Jack’s, the best-known festival is the Forest Festival and the main drag in Lufkin is Timberland Drive. At the same time, the density of trees can either isolate or protect, depending on how you look at it. Like…a curtain. I imagine this “curtain effect” was even stronger before the timber industry moved in, cleared away and changed the physical, sociological and cultural landscape.

This image makes me think of the beginning of the end of an era, which I feel evolved over generations. It was a double-edged sword, or saw if you want a more thematically accurate metaphor. On one hand, clearing the trees made way for unprecedented economic and civic progress. On the other hand, once the curtain was pulled back, things would never be the same.

As I am more of an artist and less of an academic historian, please explore these links for citations and further reading:

Image Source: “Paul Durham, Sr. Hardwood Logging Crew,” The History Center.

The Texas Forestry Museum

“Aldridge Sawmill“, Texas Beyond History.com

East Texas Lumbermen

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Painted acrylic gel plate. Stephanie Khattak.
Detail shot, work in progress. Southern Pines Lumberman Team, 1930s. Acrylic monoprint, Stephanie Khattak.
Desktop view, work in progress. Southern Pines Lumberman Team, 1930s. Acrylic monoprint, Stephanie Khattak.

This work in progress is of a logging team, part of the Southern Pines Lumber Co. in the 1930s. The image was pulled from the Diboll History Center, Durham family photo collection. My great-great uncle (my father’s great-uncle) worked on this team and is in this photo, something I didn’t learn until I started to research the image.

This was not a branch of the family tree that I was close to, so learning more about them, and their place in history, has been interesting and a nice surprise.

An image this large and detailed required not only my 16X20 plate (aka Big Betsy), but also a bit of my 8X10 plate to extend the edges. This is the largest and most difficult piece I have attempted in terms of balancing aesthetics, details and expediency so that I can pull the print before the paint dries. It is pretty abstract (keeping with my artistic style) but I wanted to make sure that the horses mostly looked like horses and that the large trees came through.

One reason the source image is so striking is the size of the cut trees against the horses and workmen. When I post the final, I will link to it so you can see for yourself. It’s pretty cool, and there are many other photos in the collection that I want to work from.

Lufkin Railroad

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“Rail Town, Paper Town.” Acrylic Monoprint by Stephanie Khattak.
Based on “Railroad Gang,” a 1939 photograph by Russell Lee.

With pine trees come timber, with timber come sawmills. From sawmills come pulpwood and from pulpwood, paper is made, along with plywood, lumber, and other “forest products”. In the case of my part of East Texas, towns are made, too. Businesses, goods, and services that comprise an economy and an identity.

The Deep East Texas timber/sawmill/pulpwood boom started before this image, but nonetheless it captures important ripples of the timber wave. According to the Library of Congress, where I found the source photo, these men were building a railroad to service the Southland Paper Mill, where many years later, my father would work as did his father, his brother-in-law and many if not most other fathers, grandfathers and uncles I knew. The mill changed ownership many times since its construction and finally closed for good in 2007 as Abitibi Bowater. My father and most workers had been laid off a few years before. My father went on to have a happy “semi-retirement” and follow his dream of being a professional singer, achieving some notoriety and many dedicated social media fans. Many others were not so fortunate.

But at the time of this image until roughly the late-90s, timber was a stabilizing and driving force in the community that it had ultimately changed forever. This piece captures a time of hard work and hope for the future.

As I am more of an artist and less of an academic historian, please explore these links for citations and further reading:

Image Source: Lee, R., photographer. (1939) Railroad gang, Southern Paper Mill construction crew, Lufkin, Texas. United States Lufkin. Texas Lufkin, 1939. Apr. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress.

Jonathan Gerland, “A Brief History of Temple Land Ownership and Management in East Texas, 1893-2007,” The Pine Bough (December 2007) via The History Center, Diboll, Texas.

Bob Bowman, “The History of Lufkin,” via City of Lufkin.

Bob Bowman, “The Pioneer Paper Machine,” via All Things Historical, Texas Escapes.

The source photo for this piece was taken by Russell Lee, a contemporary of Dorothea Lange, hired for the federally sponsored Farm Security Administration (FSA) photographic documentation project of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. In 1973 this body of work was described as “the greatest documentary collection which has ever been assembled.” I’m so grateful to have Lee’s iconic images available to build on and inspire me today.