PAPER MILL BULL GANGS 

Veteran newspaperman Tom Kelly founded this journal about 30 years ago with a unique vision. More than traditional industry publications, the Piney Woods Journal spoke directly to independent loggers, landowners of timber, and many other stakeholders impacted by the industry. Kelly chose a storytelling style that distinctly captured regional culture, history and reader interests. He and his early PWJ contributors often tapped into and preserved the memories of those involved with the timber boom period and the later times of significant industry transition.

Mid-century paper mills particularly transformed the economic landscape of the Gulf South. Unlike many early sawmills that "cut out and got out," pulp and paper operations required massive capital investment. Companies were often committed for decades, creating huge employee payrolls in towns like West Monroe, Bastrop, Springhill, Lufkin, Natchez, and Crossett.

For young men who grew up during the Depression, these mills offered something scarce and valuable: stable employment not that far away from places that they had called home. Many who had worked in CCC camps or struggled to find local work relocated to mill towns seeking more opportunities.

The entry point for this mill employment was often the "bull gang" or a crew handling the most physically demanding and occasionally dangerous mill work. Bull gangs unloaded chemical trucks, rigged hoists for moving heavy equipment, jack-hammered, and responded to mill emergencies. When pipes burst or conveyors failed, the gang responded and cleared debris to keep production running. During annual or periodic shutdowns, they were essential for overall system inspection and then restartlng.

The bull gang was for more than manual labor though. It was a proving ground. Young men who demonstrated ability and accumulated seniority could bid on apprenticeships in welding, pipefitting, electrical, or other trades as these positions opened. Some gang members waited many months, others for years, depending on their desired trade and its available slots at the mill.

My father worked in the West Monroe mill’s bull gang before he served for over four years in World War II as an aircraft mechanic and Army/Air Force sergeant in Puerto Rico. He returned to the mill afterward and eventually became a senior electrician specializing in large engines and turbines. Thirty years later, as an engineering major at Louisiana Tech, I worked two summers in the West Monroe mill bull gang.

Olinkraft, the renamed West Monroe mill for the earlier Brown Paper Company, then offered an appealing employee benefit: summer jobs for sons of established employees. I applied, along with others from the area, for one of these summer jobs in 1967. I remember completing interviews and taking a battery of tests, including one difficult test on mechanical comprehension. Selected as one of two area college students for the mill bull gang that summer, I also worked in the gang the next summer of 1968. Several other sons of employees also got summer jobs at that mill then, but in lower-paying, clean-up crews.

As a college kid and newcomer, the gang members tested us initially by piling on extra work and giving us a lot of ribbing to see how we'd respond. We had to prove ourselves and adapt to the gang's work culture.

When I graduated from Tech in the summer of 1970, a recession had dried up many of the entry-level engineering positions that had been advertised nationally the previous years. The mill generously offered me a temporary role as an apprentice mill engineer, even knowing that I would be seeking permanent work elsewhere. Six months later, I secured a planning engineer position at Western Electric in North Carolina.

Bull gang and paper mill experiences shaped many lives in our country. The mills helped create a large and specialized labor pool across the Gulf South. These welders, pipefitters, and other tradesmen who were trained in the 1950s and 60s later staffed the expanding petrochemical industry along the Gulf Coast and the offshore oil boom of the 1970s.

Yet such opportunities were largely closed to Black workers. In my father's generation and into my own, mill employment for Black workers—when possible—meant lower-paying, largely dead-end positions due to company and union policies.

Changes occurred following the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Lawsuits like Moody v. Albemarle Paper Co. challenged these discriminatory structures as violations of federal law. Paper mills slowly began to include Black employees in promotion and seniority systems. These developments often were met with levels of resistance from some coworkers and managers.

The work cultures of mid-20th century pulp and paper mill workers, like the work lives of foresters, loggers, timber haulers/truckers, and lumber yard employees then, will be increasingly lost to personal memory or recall. What is eventually left of these cultures and lives will largely be mere descriptions found in some history books, special museums, and publications like PWJ. Next month I’ll delve deeper into the unique culture of bull gangs in regional pulp and paper mills decades ago.