MSM 696 Spence Lumpkin - Boom and Bust in Carriere

1974 – During the timber boom of the early 20th Century, logging camps harvested virgin pine trees across Mississippi.  In this episode Carriere native Spence Lumpkin recalls visiting one of the camps as a boy in the early 1930s. Prior to the development of mechanized tree harvesting, giant yellow pines covered Mississippi. Lumpkin describes the way these majestic forests were clear-cut by northern profiteers. After the timber companies harvested all the pine trees in South Mississippi and moved on, locals searched for new crops to support the economy. Lumpkin discusses how late frosts, insects and hurricanes eventually wiped out the peach, satsuma and tung trees they planted. As a life-long resident of Carriere, Spence Lumpkin survived several major storms. He remembers the hurricane of 1947, as well as, Betsy and Camille.