Long Leaf Sawmill (1)

A log's trip through the mill began uphill. Logs rode an inclined trough from the pond to the sawing floor, where the band saw added in 1910 cut them into planks. Steel-roller platforms carried the planks to edger saws that trimmed off bark and squared the edges. The lumber was then sorted by grade and size on the green chain and stacked by length. From there it went to the dry kiln or to open storage, and finally to the planer mill, where the rough boards were dressed for sale.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Epps House: Solomon Northup's Gateway to Freedom — 15 mi
  The Creole cottage Solomon Northup helped build for the man who enslaved him, moved twice and now a small museum on the LSU Alexandria campus.
• Valentine Lake Recreation Area — 18 mi
  A 46-acre Kisatchie National Forest lake dug by Civilian Conservation Corps crews in the 1930s, with a campground and the head of the Wild Azalea Trail.
• Kent Plantation House — 21 mi
  Rapides Parish's oldest known standing building, a Creole house with a February tour and a 2023 memorial that put the enslaved first.
• Arna Bontemps African American Museum — 22 mi
  The restored Alexandria house where the Harlem Renaissance writer Arna Bontemps was born in 1902, on the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail.

More markers nearby

• Long Leaf Sawmill (3) — steps away
• Long Leaf Sawmill (2) — steps away
• Red River and Gulf RR Locomotive #106 — steps away
• The "Roundhouse", The Machine Shop and the "Car Knockers Shed" — steps away