Sheip Lumber Company – A Sidebar to Lumber Display

The Sheip Lumber Company occupied a site beside Scipio Creek at the north end of Market Street. This property has been the site of a sawmill for many years, stretching back before the Civil War. Thomas Hutchinson reportedly had a sawmill on this site that was destroyed by the 1851 hurricane that struck Apalachicola.

After the Civil War Col. Archibald B. Tripler built the Pennsylvania Tie Company mill on this site to saw railroad ties.  After going bankrupt the mill passed through several hands before being purchased by the Central Florida Mill and Lumber Company in 1880. Three years later this company sold out to Albert T. Stearns of Boston, Mass. who organized the Cypress Lumber Company. This company operated for over 40 years before selling the mill to the Sheip Lumber Company.

Jerome Sheip, the owner of the Sheip Lumber Company was born in Pennsylvania in 1862, and engaged in the lumber business his entire life.  He started out producing cigar boxes in Philadelphia and expanded into other aspects of the business.  When he purchased the mill in Apalachicola in 1926 the plan was to manufacture cigar box lumber exclusively.  By 1940 the mill was also cutting lumber for furniture.  At that time the foremen for the various departments at the mill were C. J. Brass, sawmill; R. W. Stewart, planing; W. J. Norred, finishing department; Mr. Mayson, power plant; J. H. Hildreth, chief engineer; and A. V. Thigpen, yard and dry kiln.  H. M. Brown was the sawyer at the mill.  Over 200 men were employed at the mill.

The mill operated into the late 1940s. Jerome Sheip died in 1952 in Apalachicola.