May atmore 2020

Kevin
McKinley
Sawmills during the age of the “Big Cut” could be wild
places. A sea of humanity ebbed and flowed through the
mills. Laborers, foremen, businessmen and suppliers all
created unique personalities inside this great ocean of
industry which was dotted with small archipelagos of
plainer mills, ripping saws and other industrial apparatus
stations dotting the landscape.
These were places where men earned an honest day’s
wage. It was hot work in the summer and cold work in
the winter; and it was dangerous work. Stories abound
of men injured and killed in the various mills of the area.
A newlywed by the name of Reaves had his arm badly
mangled at the Peavy mill, he later died. Likewise, a
group of laborers at the Carney Mill were injured when
a stray piece of wood broke loose from a saw, flew into
their group and injured three men in one incident.
Yet few incidents were as macabre as an incident
Tales From the Carney Mill
involving a severed leg that stirred the entire town of
Atmore to fear and search for its owner. It is here that
our story begins in the early morning hours of a
September day in 1915 when a fireman came down
to the mill and fired the furnace for the day's operation.
About 9 a.m., he attracted the attention of another
fireman who saw him running towards Main Street at
a sprint. It was learned that while pulling slabs from the
slab pit, he had discovered a man's foot and leg. In those
days, the slab pit was a place where workers threw out
waste slabs of wood and locals disposed of dead
chickens and other waste, presumably to be incinerated
by the mill as part of its industrial operations.
The presence of the unidentified leg created quite a
commotion. The news spread like wild fire; the mill's
whistle screamed at the presumed tragedy that a worker
may have fallen into a saw or otherwise been accidentally
chopped up and disposed in the slab pit.
The foreman of the mill was instructed to close the mill
and conduct an immediate roll call of workers. Residents
of Atmore rushed to the mill to check the condition of
their family members who worked there.
Finally, the truth of the severed leg was learned. Near
the mill stood Atmore's first hospital, Baggett Infirmary.
Dr. E.N. Sellers was responsible for the establishment
of this hospital. On an early September's night, a patient
was presented to the infirmary showing the serious
.
14