Clements Lumber Company Tokens – coins made specifically for trade in the company store
THE SAWMILL AT RAY CITY, GA
1920 Census
By 1920, the Clements Lumber Company sawmill at Ray City had grown to a large industrial operation with its own railroad stop. A ‘sawmill town’ had grown up to house the sawmill workers and their families. The enumerator for 1920 US Census annotated six pages of census sheets indicating the residents of the company town. This “sawmill census” shows that there were 78 households with 313 residents living in rented homes at the sawmill. Many men and sometimes boys were employed as “sawmill laborers”, others worked as sawyers, teamsters, firemen, foremen, wheelwrights, commissary clerks, or marketmen. Many of the women worked out of their homes, in the occupation of “laundress.”
While residents of the ‘sawmill town’ had access to all of the goods and services in Ray City just a mile south on the tracks of the Georgia and Florida Railroad, the sawmill company also operated a commissary where workers could shop. Joe Quinton Clements was enumerated as Commissary Salesman, as were Connie Cleveland Devane and James Patrick Devane.
In sawmill camps it was not unusual for everything to be owned and operated by the lumber company. Workers had very little choice but to purchase food and other goods at a company store or commissary. When workers ran short of money between paydays, the company would provide “payday loans” in the form of company tokens. This provided the workers with credit when their wages had been depleted. In this way, the company could charge enormous markups on goods, making workers completely dependent on the company, thus enforcing a form of loyalty to the company. Additionally, while employees could exchange scrip for cash, this was rarely done at face value. The company tokens were only valid only within the company town where it was issued. While store owners in neighboring communities might accept the tokens as money, they rarely did so at face value. In the U.S., payment of wages in scrip became illegal under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.
Token use in lumber camps and at sawmills was extensive and formed a small microeconomy of its own. Often the lumber mill was the primary employer in town, with the other local businesses in place purely to support the mill. In many sawmill communities, the commissary became a hub of activity; a place for employees to gather, get their groceries and supplies, collect paychecks, or simply to socialize. Some lumber mills provided recreational activities for their employees, such as pool halls or arcades, many of which were designed to keep restive staff from hitting the local saloons in otherwise entertainment-starved camps. The heyday for token use by lumber companies was in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Other area lumber companies that issued trade tokens:
- Jackson Brothers Lumber Company, Ray City, Ga
- Nix Lumber Company, Ray City, Ga
- Studstill & Clements Lumber Company, Ray City, Ga
- Swindle & Nix Lumber Company, Ray City, Ga
- Berrien Lumber Company, Nashville, GA
- Milltown Lumber Company, Milltown, GA
- Massee & Felton Lumber Company, Bannockburn, GA
Related Posts:
- Clements Lumber Company
- WWI Boom for Clements Lumber Company at Ray City, GA
- Levi J. Clements
- William F. Luckie ~ Luckie Lumber Mill
- Batts Goins ~ Tie Chopper
- The case of Joe Wilmot
- Luckie Stop at Ray City
- Andrew Morris ~ Shingle Mill Machinist
- William F. Luckie ~ Luckie Lumber Mill
- The Barrel Makers
- Turpentine in Wiregrass Georgia
- Lacy Lester Shaw
- Lon Fender ~ Turpentine Operator
- November 6, 1923 ~ Big Fire Loss at the Ray City Sawmill
- Claudie Royal ~ 1920s Skidderman at Ray City, GA
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