This Pastime has me thinking about a beloved issue of the now defunct Arkansas Almanac and how the “movers and shakers,” of the state’s business climate has changed.
The 1954-55 edition of the almanac almost always jumps into my mind as I see some old holdover almanacs on display at the bookstores and mass retailers these early days of January every year.
My grandparents were fans of the almanac and the old drugstore (Cardui Calendars) , that proverbial yellow, red and blue printed block calendar which always, always, always, hung from a prominent space in the front room of their home off Highway 15 North. There was also a copy of the Old Farmer’s Almanac and the Cardui companies’ almanac on hand – usually hung by a shoestring through the hole in the upper left-hand corner of the tiny green almanac – near the calendar for instant use.
But the Arkansas Almanac was a business almanac, holding up to date state economic statistics, business information and hand statistics about Arkansas – these were often found in every office in the courthouse or city halls all over the state.
Inside the 236 pages of the 1954-55 issue, for example, were all the political leaders, United States Senators, Congressmen (all 7 who served in 1952-53) and the six who were re-elected in 1954 (after Arkansas lost one seat due to the 1950 census) and were in office.
John L. McClellan and J. William Fulbright were the U.S. Senators. The Congressmen were: Ezekiel “Tooke” Gathings of West Memphis 1st District; Wilbur D. Mills of Kensett, Dist. 2; James W. Trimble of Berryville, Dist. 3; Oren Harris of El Dorado, Dist. 4; T. Dale Alford of Little Rock, Dist. 5; and William F. Norrell of Monticello, Dist. 6.
Prominent in the issue on page 4 was a two-color advertisement (red and black ink) on the Bradley Lumber Company of Arkansas – proudly in Warren, Arkansas.
The full page advertisement signaled a strong, strong industrial base the -“Bradley Brand” an emblem stamped, often in red ink, on the finest of lumber products and the saw mill and other assorted finishing mills was well known across the South.
The “Bradley Brand” was as iconic a brand emblem as the current “Yellow Wood” label on pressure treated pine coming from a conglomerate of mills from Mississippi and Alabama advertised heavily on the SEC Network and ESPN every sporting event shown.
The ad was featured with an aerial photograph high above the mill complex out in West Warren, showing off the rows and rows of stacked lumber, the many sheds of the process and the giant sawmill.
The headline was “Bradley’s Integrated Operations Sustain Practical Conservation,” a buzz phrase among the timber industry asserting the elimination of wasted effort, wasted product and efficiency.
In layman’s terms this mill could take a raw log from the start and turn out a finished product of board feet of lumber, finished molding or other fine hardwood and softwood products used in all phases of commercial and residential use.
The text of the copy in the ad read: “The Bradley Lumber Company harvested pine and hardwoods from its own extensive timber holdings. What it converts from these natural resources comprises a range of products unique in the industry.”
“While many southern plants, for the most part, turn out standard items of lumber, finish and flooring. Bradley does this and more. For, in addition, it refines, fabricates and semi-finishes countless items for residential, public buildings and commercial construction, wood working, furniture factory and industrial uses.
“It is in application of these refining processes at the source that Bradley’s big modern plant illustrated above is devoted to the practice of conservation in the broadest sense, with attendant, enduring benefits to the economy of its home community and state.”
The diamond shaped emblem of the Bradley Brand is also featured in this ad.
The larger letters from top to bottom reads: Bradley with the word Brand across the middle of the emblem. Across the top and sides are these words “Bradley Lumber Company of Arkansas,” then “Warren, Arkansas” and “Finished Hardwood Dimension,” and “Flooring, Trim, Molding an Etc.”
How deep does this bed inked brand go into the community?
In the YMCA’s Pee Wee football team, the team with the red and white jerseys were the Bradley’s team.
Southern (Lumber Company) wore dark blue, Rotary Club wore green and the Lion’s club wore yellow jerseys.
This mill, in the 1950s and 1960s was a major employer in not only Bradley County, but in the Southeast Arkansas area of the state.
Other companies also in the Arkansas Almanac back in the day (with full page ads) were Arkansas Power & Light, Farm Bureau of Arkansas (that’s the way it was said 60 years ago) Cameron Feed Mills (in North Little Rock), The Grapette Company (of Camden); C. E. Palmer Newspapers (the forerunner to WEHCO Media today) The Crossett Companies of Crossett; Southwest Hotels, a chain that featured the Hotel Marion, Hotel Grady Manning, Hotel Lafayette, and Albert Pike Hotels in Little Rock and The Majestic (in Hot Springs) that was said to be the “Queen of the Resort Hotels.”
Also featured but long since gone was Roderick Realty, Fort Smith’s No. 1 realtor; the Barium Corporation at Magnet Cover; the Hotel Pines in Pine Bluff; Arkansas Louisiana Gas Company, ALCO at Gum Springs (Clark County) and a few others.
While there are many Pastimes about the Bradley Lumber Company and its far reaches into the industrial history of Arkansas, the “Bradley Brand” continues to be a proud emblem of Warren’s industrial past.