From muddy crossroads to the center of the universe

By Kimberly King

Salt Lick began its history in 1884 as a tiny village situated at the intersection of two muddy crossroads.

In those early years the small community consisted of a depot, a post office known as Vail, three business houses, a few small stock pens and only a few scattered houses.

J.P. Copher and Company, a dealer in dry goods and groceries, A.B. Crawford, dry goods, hardware, boots, shoes and drugs and James C. Ogg, a lumber merchant, were some of the early business men.

Dr. H.H. Lewis, Isaac Shouse, J.M. Colliver, J.C. Campbell, W.J. Quisenberry, J.R. Dickerson, James Jones, J.B. Copher, A.B. Crawford and J.C. Ogg were among the early residents.

It was the hope of those early citizens, that their small village would someday become a modern, progressive town.

In the early part of the twentieth century one enthusiastic resident, who called himself Ajax, termed the village, “The center Star of Bath County, around which the satellites twinkle”.

In it’s day, Salt Lick was a lively and industrial town, and boasted many businesses and industries that employed hundreds of workers, with the chief source of income derived from an abundance of timber.

Walter J. Fell founded the Stave and Lumber Company and had the largest stock of seasoned poplar, white oak and pine in the state.

Fell was said to have been an energetic and progressive man who emigrated from Pennsylvania around 1890 to establish one of the greatest, single enterprises ever operated in the county.

The Stave and Lumber Company was a massive operation that helped turn a small village into a boom town.

Fell’s business consisted of about 8 saw and stave mills, a railroad tie factory and a large jointing plant, employing nearly 15 hundred men that were hired to cut and haul timber and to manufacture lumber products such as railroad ties and white oak staves for making whiskey barrels.

Those who worked for Fell were paid with the company’s own script, in the form of aluminum chips, which could be exchanged for merchandise at a store owned by Fell’s son, Earl.

The stave mill was said to have covered three and a half acres and was situated at the west edge of town between the tracks of the C. & O. on the north and the Licking River on the south on what was then known as Fell Street.

The main building was 36 by 80 feet and contained eight jointers with a capacity of 30,000 concave and convex staves per day.

The kilns were 36 by 108 feet in size and the motive power was furnished by a Corliss steam engine. Staves were sold and shipped in lots of 500,000 to around three million.

Among those employed by the company as foreman or in a supervisory position were General Joe Allen, a descendent of Colonel Ethan Allen of Revolutionary war fame.

Major W. J. Reeves, a Fleming County native served as foreman of the railroad tie factory and was said to have directed the workforce with a steady eye, a firm hand and a level head.

Commodore J.H. Jones served as General Manager and was described as a man of sterling character, an expert mechanic and draftsman.

M.A. Adams, an expert accountant served as head bookkeeper and secretary.

With such a demand for the timber products additional land was purchased to build a plant to manufacture wooden kegs and bent wood work.

The timber for the growing company was secured from an area that extended a distance of twenty-miles from the center of operations in which many saw mills were situated that also produced even more jobs with men cutting and sawing timber day and night to keep up with the company’s demand for timber.

But, in August of 1903, disaster struck when a fire, believed to have been provoked because of labor trouble, destroyed the jointing plant and the stave mill.

Despite many offers to help rebuild the plant, Fell declined to rebuild and one of Salt Licks largest industries came to an end.