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Timber, Land & Railroads: A History of the John L. Roper Lumber Company
Presented by Bill Barber
February 7, 2024 at 11:30am
at Carolina Colours Pavilion

Bill Barber will provide an account of the timber boom that swept across coastal North Carolina following the Civil War. This green gold rush brought thousands of speculators, lumbermen, railroaders, watermen, and loggers to exploit the untapped timber resources of the vast swampy wilderness. With sawmills came boom towns, employment for thousands of local inhabitants, and the first industry in many of the coastal counties. The John L. Roper Lumber Company was only one of the many lumber mills that operated during that era, but it led the way in building railroads, organizing the lumbermen from three states into the North Carolina Pine Association, and rebranding what had been considered an inferior product into lumber that dominated the market as “North Carolina Pine.” Roper’s timber empire spread from Norfolk, Virginia, to Jacksonville, North Carolina, and turned Norfolk into the leading lumber market on the East Coast.

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