Editing Carter County, Missouri (section)

===Timber industry===
The [[Missouri Lumber and Mining Company]], more than any other entity was for many years to shape the economic, cultural, and ecologic landscape of Carter County.

The Missouri Lumber and Mining Company moved into Carter County in 1887 and made it for many years the primary lumber production center of Missouri. Shipping a [[sawmill]] by rail to [[Williamsville, Missouri|Williamsville]], which at the time was the end of the line, it was then hauled by wagons into Carter County, to a site that was selected because of a large natural pond known as Tolliver Pond. There on land that was originally [[Land patent|patented]] by William A Simms in 1857 the Missouri Lumber and Mining Company in 1887 laid out and founded the town of Grandin, naming it for the principle stockholder in the company.

The Missouri Lumber and Mining Company also brought the railroad into Carter County when in 1887 they granted the Current River branch of the [[Frisco Railroad]] a right-of-way across their land. The rail line to Grandin was finished two years later in 1889, and the first regular train service to the new born town of Grandin ran on July 3 that same year.

In order to feed the giant sawmill it had established in Carter County, which required logs from 70 acres of land each day to keep it running, the Missouri Lumber and Mining Company laid down miles of narrow gauge railroads that radiated outward beyond Carter County and into neighboring Reynolds, Wayne, Butler, Ripley and Shannon counties. At its peak the sawmills in Carter County produced in excess of 60 to 70 million board feet of lumber each year.

In 1900 the timber boom in Carter County was in full stride.

By 1909 much of the virgin pine forest in and around Carter County had been cut down.

In 1910 the lumber boom ended when the Grandin mill whistle blew for the last time.

By 1911 all the equipment had been moved to the new mill at West Eminence in Shannon County, leaving behind an economically and ecologically devastated landscape.<ref name="mdc.mo.gov">[http://mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/habitats/forests/missouri-forests-past "Missouri Department of Conservation, Missouri Forests in the Past"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120529184528/http://mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/habitats/forests/missouri-forests-past |date=May 29, 2012 }}</ref><ref name="thelibrary.org">[http://thelibrary.org/lochist/periodicals/ozarkswatch/ow601h.htm "Ozark Watch: The Ozark Forest, Its Exploitation and Restoration"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121017220924/http://thelibrary.org/lochist/periodicals/ozarkswatch/ow601h.htm |date=October 17, 2012 }}</ref><ref>[https://archive.today/20120719153719/http://soils.missouri.edu/survey/manuscript.asp?series=MO612 "SOIL SURVEY OF CARTER COUNTY, MISSOURI"]</ref>