Information
Sheet
R Grant-Davis Lumber Company.
109 Records,
1882-1949.
Twenty-nine volumes and nine folders.
These are business records of a lumber
company based in Cabool, Missouri, which operated in southern Missouri and
northern Arkansas. The collection
includes ledgers, cash books, trial balances, inventories, and correspondence
with the St. Louis and San Francisco
(“Frisco”) Railroad Company regarding freight claims. Russelle Grant Simonsen, daughter of Paul S.
Grant, the last president of the firm, donated the records of the Grant-Davis
Lumber Company. Mrs. Simonsen also
provided background information on the company and the individuals who operated
it. This information has been filed in
the Information Folder.
The Grant-Davis Lumber Company was
organized as the Grant Lumber Company in Cabool in 1886. The founder was Silas W. Grant, who had come
to Missouri via Nebraska, from Indiana, in 1872. After settling briefly in Chariton County, Grant moved south to
Texas County to engage in the lumber business in the hardwood forests of the
Ozarks. His son, Paul S. Grant, joined
the company before his father’s death, and became the president of the
firm. Charles E. Davis joined the
company after marrying into the Grant family.
With Paul S. Grant as president and Charles Davis as secretary, the firm
operated as the Grant-Davis Lumber Company until it entered receivership in
1939.
The company bought and cut timber
throughout southern Missouri and northern Arkansas. The main office was located in Cabool, with lumber camps at Hanks
and Sterling, and yards on the Frisco railroad at Springfield, Willow Springs,
Mountain Grove, Dunn, Sax, and Mountain View.
Although the firm did cut and sell some dimensional lumber, its lumber
order book indicates that the biggest part of the company’s business came
through the sales of fence posts, railroad ties, and bridge pilings. Midwestern firms, especially railroads,
construction companies, and lumber dealers, were frequent customers.
The bulk of this collection consists of
bound financial records, and includes ledgers, cash books, trial balances,
inventories, and records of shipments.
The inventory and sales records (volumes 23-26) are particularly
useful in determining the scope and nature of the company’s business. The firm incorporated around 1930, and the
stock ledger is available, as are the minutes of the board of directors’
meetings for 1931-1939. The folders
contain unbound journal pages, freight claims and related correspondence with
the Frisco railroad, and miscellaneous correspondence and printed material.
The Grants were involved in other
business ventures, and the collection includes the stock ledger of the St.
Louis, Cabool and Little Rock Railway Company, a line that was never constructed. Silas Grant also was an investor in the
Mexican Mining and Development Company,
which operated a profitable mine in Oaxaca, Mexico, until its seizure by the
government during the Revolution.
Credits from mine revenues are noted in several of the cash books.
Nine volumes are filed in OVERSIZE.
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