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FROM WOODS
TO MILLS By Patrick Dunning
Tennessee’s Hooper operation is wellversed in all facets of the timber products business.
T
TOONE, Tenn. he Hooper family and kin are renowned in the Tennessee Valley region for being a friend in each step of the wood harvesting and sawmilling process. Their portable sawmill tradition began almost a century ago with Malcolm Hooper, father of Tony Hooper, 64, owner of Tony Hooper Sawmills, Inc., hauling logs in an old pickup truck to his all-manual groundhog diesel sawmill. Tony has built on his father’s foundation and pursued crosstie markets heavily since the company’s founding in 1970, including the installation in 2018 of a second sawmill company and site, Northside Lumber & Sawmill LLC in Bolivar, Tenn., only seven miles to the south of Toone. Crossties are revered as their bread and butter and for good reason: the area’s Hatchie River bottoms are perfect for large growth and the Hooper sawmills are set up to take advantage of the big logs to produce crossties as well as cants. Tony’s two sons-in-law manage his sawmills: Blake Sowder at Northside Sawmill & Lumber in Bolivar, and Richard Crowley at Tony Hooper Sawmill in Toone. Tony Hooper Sawmill operates a Wood-Mizer WM4500 industrial sawmill with vertical bandmill thinkerf technology along with a Hurdle headrig; while Northside Lumber runs two (two and three head block) Hurdle mills. 20
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The WM4500 model can saw lengths up to 27 ft. and yields additional footage with a 1/16 in. kerf.
The Hooper’s Wood-Mizer averages 10MBF a day.
Between the two mills they average 250MBF weekly. “Years and years ago a big industry came here for ties,” Tony recalls. “We knew then we like taking a tree all the
way to a finished product.” It’s easier for Tony to purchase and select-cut parcels of land with his logging crew, and believes landowners get more bang for their buck this way.
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