Company script

[Woodwalker]

Another thread got me to thinking about some of the old mills that use to be around these parts. I can remember about a dozen or some within a 25-mile radius of here. Over the years they all have closed. I remember building onto my dad's house. Figured up a material list, went to the mill and bought the lumber. Same thing when I built my first house around 1979. Shortly after that mill also closed.
Any way, most of these mills had a "Company Store" where folks could buy goods. Some, maybe all, used a "script" of some sort in place of actual money. My Dad told me that this last mill I remember used a paper bill that had a picture of white horse's head on it. Folks called the script "White Horses".  From what I've been told, until it was outlawed, this was company script was common practice at all the mills around here.  Any Company stores in ya'lls part of world smiley_huh
Was thinking too, there was another business over west of here that used a barter system and got named for some of the goods they took in trade. It was called "The Chicken Ranch" Think smiley_gorgeous

[Texas Ranger]

Aint you a little young to know about the chicken ranch?

[woodhick]

Don''t want to hijack thread and I hope this practice is outlawed.  I don't know of any around here I know the coal mines used to do this years ago.   I am afraid with the way things are going today we will all be getting paid in Wally bucks before long!

[leweee]

 :D 1 Chinese yuan = .12¢ US = 1 WALLY buck :D

[tcsmpsi]

"...owe my soul to the company store."

[pineywoods]

When I was a youngster, we lived in one of those "sawmill"towns where dad worked at the mill. You could in fact wind up oweing your soul to the company. No script, everything came out of your paycheck at the end of the week. There was the usual company store, drugstore, icehouse, doctor, and we lived in a company house. Firewood was available from company land and stovewood was available as cut-offs from the mill. $1 a dumptruck load delivered.
There was room for a garden behind each house and just about everyone kept a cow.
Today's liberal society would consider this next to slavery, but back then, those jobs were much sought after. Sure beat a 1 room shack as a tenant farmer, which is where most of the mill hands came from. If a man worked hard and lived within his means, it wasn't a bad life. Sure, a few wound up oweing their soul to the company, but that still goes on today, just the means of getting there have changed.

[wesdor]

For those interested in the history of company towns, Linda Carlson has written an excellent book called Company Towns of the Pacific Northwest.  I was not involved in the actual writing of the book, but have done a great deal of research into the Holden town located in a very remote portion of the Cascades in Washington. 

This next September we will be holding the 50th Anniversary Reunion of the closing of the Holden Mine.  There will be some significant historical research shared with all attendees.  This is a fascinating area of research and I'm glad we have a thread here.

BTW - Holden did not have a "chicken ranch", but if you went 12 miles down the mountain and then across a bay of Lake Chelan, there was a similar establishment there.  A story is told (true or not I am not sure), that a man went to visit the establishment and his wife found out.  She went down the mountain with a frying pan and took care of him when he came out of the "house".

[thurlow]

   Firewood was available from company land and stovewood was available as cut-offs from the mill.   

Be interesting to know how many folks know the difference between firewood and stovewood (there is a difference). 

[leweee]

Stove wood=foot long(usually split fine for quick fire in wood burning cook stove).
Firewood=anything (wood)that would fit in any wood burning appliance for space heating. ;D

[pigman]

thurlow, when I was a lot younger and carried in the wood for the night, the stovewood went in the wood box by the kitchen cooking stove and the firewood went in the box behind the big heating stove in the living room. The stovewood had to be split into smaller pieces to fit in the smaller firebox of the cooking stove.

When I worked for our uncle we were paid in script, it was actually called MPC, but we called it funny money. When it got all wet and soggy it was hard to tell the difference between a $.10 bill and a $10 bill.

DanG, lewee is faster than I am.

[leweee]

pigman.....you had more to type. ;D
leweee.....the super slow typer

[Woodwalker]

Texas Ranger, the Chicken Ranch was going strong when I was just out of high school. It was commonly known round here amongst us boys and they did make a movie about it.
Pigman, I remember the wood cook stove,  but was to young to fetch in the wood. My Dad built a new house round this time, actually built it out of a couple of old mill houses he bought and tore down from a mill that closed. When we moved into the new house I recall us getting a kerosene cook stove, then propane that winter.

[Fla._Deadheader]

It's pretty funny how things were pretty much the same all over the country.

  Pigman has it right, stove wood in the woodbox, right by the stove, and faarwood right by the heater stove. I remember all the folks that would sit on that woodbox, at different times, when I visited my Grandmother. 

  My job was filling both boxes, before I got to go fishing in the old cranberry bog reservoirs, or the brook.