Eight Decades Revisited

Grace Anna Halbert Dial, Chairman of Halbert Mill Co in Dialville, remembers what it used to be like.

Halbert Mill Co, located 6 miles south of Jacksonville on FM 347 in Dialville, has had a long and rich history. Starting in the early 1920’s and continuing on today as a family owned business, they are a primary provider for packaging material used in the brick industry throughout the United States.

Though now they provide services for over 400 customers with most of those outside of Jacksonville, Halbert Mill started out much different.

In the early 1920s, Grace’s father, Pete Halbert, owned a mill in Elkhart until it burned in 1929. This was during the worst of the depression and he was unable to rebuild. The family moved back to Dialville and Pete went to work for his father-in-law, Mr. Slover, at Slover’s Mill. At that time, they were planing lumber and cutting veneer for crates to be used for shipments of Jacksonville tomatoes. Grace was 9 and pitched in by pasting labels on tomato lugs made at the Slover Dialville Mill.

One of Grace’s earliest memories was of her father, Pete, getting up about 3:00 am every morning to "go fire the boiler so the logs would be steamed by work time." The logs had to be heated so that they would peel smooth on the veneer lathe.

"The men had loaded the vat the afternoon before. Fuel for the boiler was all scrap lumber and veneer plus bark from the logs," says Grace. "All the machinery was run by steam to turn a big line shaft down the center of the mill. Big pulleys on the line shaft powered the belts to make pieces of the mill equipment run. In the fall, during cotton-picking time, the gin was also run on steam using the same boiler."

In 1940, Papa Slover turned the mill over to Pete and Annie Halbert, Grace’s parents. It became Halbert Mill Co. The mill produced planed lumber and veneer for wire bound crates for vegetables and industrial products.

In 1948, Pete went into a partnership with his brother-in-law to form Jennings & Halbert. This was an iron-ore mining operation that they started in Dialville. They mined and shipped many railcars of ore from Dialville to the steel mill. They retired and sold their equipment and business to Comer Hudson in 1969.

However, Pete could not stay retired. He went back to work at the veneer and saw mill with Rayburn and Pat McCown.

"He had saw dust in his veins because he was always happiest around lumber and veneer," says Grace. "He enjoyed working and never complained about what needed to be done. Work was his hobby and vacation all in one. He was a fine Christian father and an example to us all. He continued to work at the mill after it became M&H Crates (McCown & Halbert) until he died at the age of 87 in 1985."

When Pete Halbert went into the iron-ore business, he left Halbert Mill to Grace and her husband Charles Dial. Charles had worked at the mill after school and summers.

Wanting to take the business in a new direction, Charles, in 1950, decided to get out of the lumber planning and stay strictly with veneer. That same year, they moved from the original site and built a new mill at the location in Dialville, which is now M&H Crates.

Most of the machinery was brought over from the old mill but to keep up with demands, they also purchased a used lathe with a back roller and other new machinery.

Because it could be de-barked without steam, Cottonwood was the species of choice to use for making veneer. It was plentiful and Charles had it hauled in from many places. "Of course, he was going to do it the hard way. He measured the logs to determine the board feet and used complex calculations instead of weighing the logs like they do today", Grace recalls. Those logs were cut to veneer for tomato lugs and fruit and vegetable hampers and shipped to in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas and also to Colorado as well as local farmers.

In 1960, a more economical way to ship fruit and vegetables affected the business. Corrugated boxes started to replace the old method of wood crates. At about this time, Bob Moore, a steel strap salesman for Acme Steel, approached Charles about helping him come up with a way to make a brick cube that would be stable enough to ship brick in rail cars.

Bob and Charles designed a cube that used the veneer to form a void in the cube. This void allowed forklifts to lift the brick cube without the need for an expensive pallet. The railroad formed a committee to review this design, which was already being used by trucks. They finally accepted this design after many hours and hard work by Bob and Charles.

The first veneer was sold to Acme Brick for use in a brick cube in 1962. Because Acme brick wanted to get all of their packaging supplies from one location, Halbert Mill began bringing in truckloads and railcars of paper to sell with the wood veneer.

In 1969, Charles leased the veneer operation to Rayburn McCown with the agreement that Rayburn would manufacture the veneer and HMC would warehouse and sell it. The manufacturing mill became M&H Crates and the same agreement still stands with the new generations of the family at both M&H and HMC.

In 1972, the first part of a continuous warehouse was built across the road from M&H. This is the present location of Halbert Mill.

Charles Dial died in 1977 and made Grace promise to keep the business if she could until their daughter, Martha Dial Hughes and her husband, Barry Hughes came home from the army. Grace operated the business along with several key employees until 1986. Grace said, "Were it not for George Peterson and Allen Yarbrough, I couldn’t have done it."

In 1986, Martha and Barry came home. "Who would have ever dreamed in 1960 when paper was almost our undoing that today would keep us going?" Grace states. "Barry has made a difference in the direction our company has taken." The company purchased their first paper converting equipment in 1988 and hasn’t slowed down since.