Between 1890 and 1930, large lumber companies moved into southwest Louisiana to harvest Longleaf Pine. After 1930, most of the companies ended logging operations, leaving thousands of acres of pine stumps. In 1919, W. Burns Logan, Sr., a chemical engineer, arrived in DeQuincy to explore the possibility of processing the pine stumps into pine oil, turpentine, and rosin. Finding an abundant supply of high quality stumps, he established the Acme Products Company. The Acme plant stood on 26 acres at the southeast intersection of Highways 12 and 27. Purchased by Newport Industries in 1928, the plant soon employed as many as 450 men. Independent contractors, known as "stumpers", provided the raw materials. Stumpers dynamited the stumps from the ground and transported them to the plant for processing. The plant had a tremendous economic impact on the area, but by 1957 the supply of stumps had dwindled and the DeQuincy plant was closed.
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