MS Mo 378 Charlie Ainsworth - Logging the Big Woods

Born in 1885, Charlie Ainsworth of Hattiesburg began cutting trees as a teenager in the Piney Woods. Despite the long hours of difficult labor, he recalls that the logging crew would sing while they worked. Logging was dangerous work and many men lost their lives. Ainsworth remembers how his last saw partner was killed by a falling tree. Cut logs were hauled to the sawmills by train.  Ainsworth details how he helped lay the tracks for several of the logging companies in South Mississippi.