We set out this morning for a long drive to tour the Timber Charcoal Plant…
We see lots of industry and businesses alongside the road on our travels, and we rarely know what they are…
This is the Timber Charcoal Plant…
It has rained for the past 24 hours, and the sawdust covered dirt parking lot stuck to my truck’s tires…
The plant uses waste product from lumber mills. This is wood recently brought in from a mill that makes pallets, so all the scraps are about four feet long. It is all hardwood, usually oak, pecan, hickory…
Our tour was led by the owner, the third generation of his family owning this plant. His nephew works here, making it a 4th generation operation. He mentioned many times how they are not getting rich owning the plant, but all the employees have full health care, retirement plans, and good pay. They set production goals for the week (40 hours of work) and generally they finish by noon on Friday; they all get paid for their 40 hours, and they get to go home early…
When he was asked if his children will take over for him, he equivocated… I got the impression that he wants better things (college, profession) for his children, but he was still proud of what he has accomplished here…
These funny concrete and stucco buildings are the kilns. They burn the wood at about 260 degrees F. This places tremendous stress on the concrete and steel structure…
These giant pipes are part of the air cleaning system. They exhaust the smoke from the kilns and send it to be cleaned, so that air pollution is greatly reduced…
The kiln on the left is under construction – you can see the wood formwork for the concrete…
The roofs of the kilns are reinforced concrete, but the intense heat cracks the concrete and the roof will collapse. Therefore they build a steel exoskeleton atop the kiln to hold up the roof…
Here you can see the rows of kilns with their steel doors…
This kiln is being loaded with wood. The bundles are left with their steel straps on…
The wood will be stacked wall to wall and floor to ceiling…
This is a close-up of the steel door jamb, totally warped by the heat…
Another kiln under construction, steel door frame in place…
This what a fully loaded kiln looks like after it has been burned and cooled. It is about 25% of the original volume.
This plant produced high quality chunk charcoal; sizes will vary… (charcoal briquets use lesser quality charcoal that is mixed with water, paste, and sawdust, then formed into cute little uniform size briquets…) This piece of charcoal is almost 100% carbon…
This shows the steel ceiling supports of the steel exoskeleton above… warped from the heat, but still capable of holding up the roof…
Everything – equipment, buildings, people – are covered with soot… (no photographs of people allowed…)
The finished product, ready to be bagged. Smaller pieces are screened out, larger pieces are broken up…
The charcoal is bagged and the bags are put on pallets. They sell their product to many different resellers, so all the bags are proprietary, and the plant name is not mentioned. That way each brand can claim they are the best, and no one knows that it all comes from the same plant…
Their charcoal is sold to serious home BBQers, competitive BBQers, and professionals, such as BBQ restaurants…
We dusted the soot off our shoes and headed back to the campground…
We stopped for lunch in the town of Eminence…
We had a typical Ozarks lunch with another of our caravan friends…
We relaxed for the rest of the day. Tonight is the Final Banquet of the caravan, held at the campground clubhouse (or Pickin’ Shed, as they call it here in the South…).
The clubhouse is about 1000 yards from most of the Airstreams. Most caravaners chose to drive…
Once inside we had a little entertainment, then our final caravan meal, a nice catered affair…
Then more entertainment… This Final Banquet is a longstanding caravan tradition. In the olden days people dressed up in dinner jackets and formal dresses. We are much more casual today. This is all planned by a committee of caravan volunteers…
After much celebrating we returned to the Villa and an enjoyable time was had by all…
We returned to the Villa. End of Caravan – we depart at 0 dark 30 tomorrow, heading for Texarkana, TX. An enjoyable time was had by all…
Adventures in the Villa 