Editing Lockhart, Alabama (section)

==History==
Lockhart came into being about 1904 when the [[Jackson Lumber Company]] mill was constructed there, the community being a company town. Many streets were named for [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] tribes. The mill was erected to handle the dense forests of [[Pinus palustris|yellow pine]] in what was known as the "Jackson Tract". The town was named for [[Standard Oil]] magnate and [[Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania]] financier, Charles Lockhart.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://pghbridges.com/articles/biography/lockhart-charles_brilliant.htm|title = Bridges and Tunnels of Allegheny County and Pittsburgh, PA - Charles Lockhart and the Brilliant Refinery}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.southernspaces.org/2013/inside-jackson-tract-battle-over-peonage-labor-camps-southern-alabama-1906|title = Inside the Jackson Tract: The Battle over Peonage Labor Camps in Southern Alabama, 1906}}</ref> In 1912, the mill employed around a thousand workers and ran 24/7. At that time Lockhart was the largest lumber mill in the United States. Flooring for the famous [[Waldorf-Astoria Hotel]] in New York City came from Lockhart.

In 1903 the mill was the center of a [[peonage]] scandal. More than a hundred immigrant laborers recruited in cities in the North were held against their will in a walled compound on the site. Company officials were sentenced to as much as eighteen months in jail when convicted but were able to have their sentences reduced by political friends.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Flynt|first1=Wayne |title=Poor But Proud|date=February 5, 2016 |publisher=University of Alabama Press}}</ref>

The milling facility was served by both the [[Central of Georgia Railroad]] and the [[Louisville and Nashville Railroad]], connecting through nearby [[Florala, Alabama]].<ref>http://www.floralahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/11-LN-CofGa-Depots-in-Lockhart-AL.21.jpg {{Bare URL image|date=March 2022}}</ref> "The mill, however, closed in 1940, and historical accounts offer two reasons. Military enlistments prior to U.S. entry in World War II caused a labor shortage, or company officials sold their holdings and the land to the residents after cutting all the timber in the area and deciding not to wait for replanted timber to mature. Jackson Lumber Company also donated much land to the state that was replanted and developed by the [[Civilian Conservation Corps]] into [[Geneva State Forest]] in neighboring [[Geneva County, Alabama|Geneva County]]."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-3446|title=Lockhart}}</ref> This land had little value after it had been [[clearcutting|clear cut]], the practice of the time, and being unable to sell the now-deforested acreage during the [[Great Depression]], the company returned it to the state in the 1930s rather than pay taxes on it.<ref name="gsf">{{cite web |title=Geneva State Forest |publisher=Alabama Forestry Commission |url=http://www.forestry.state.al.us/geneva_state_forest.aspx?bv=2&s=8 |accessdate=September 30, 2010}}</ref>