BARREL MAKERS

Inscription

BARREL MAKERS
AS LUMBER INDUSTRY BOOMED
BROOKLYN COOPERAGE WORKERS
MIGRATED FROM ACROSS U.S. TO
NEW PLANTS IN GEORGETOWN
IN 1921 AND SUMTER IN 1928.
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
WILLIAM G. POMEROY FOUNDATION 2026

On April 16, 1881, the Brooklyn Cooperage Co. was incorporated in Brooklyn, NY as a subsidiary of the American Sugar Refining Company (later known as Domino Sugar). By the early 1920s the company had cooperage locations in Poplar Bluff, MS, Baltimore, MD, Boston, MA, Philadelphia, PA, New Orleans, LA, St. Regis Falls, NY, Jersey City, NJ, Georgetown, SC, and Sumter, SC. The cooperage plants used lumber to build barrels and casks for storing and transporting sugar and other goods. They shipped their barrels to the sugar refining plants in New Orleans, Philadelphia, and New York.

In 1921 the cooperage plant in Poplar Bluff, Missouri was shut down after operating for 26 years. Poor market conditions were cited as the reason by the local newspaper. At the same time, the American Sugar Refining company had been working on building and opening a new plant in Georgetown, South Carolina, under the name of the Pennsylvania Stave Company, which began production in 1921. Many of the workers who had been employed by the company in Poplar Bluff moved to Georgetown to work at the plant. However, only two years later, the company decided it would move the mill to Sumter, closer to the tracts of timber being cut along the Santee River. The plant built in Sumter, which began operating in 1928 under the Brooklyn Cooperage company name, drew the hundreds of workers who had previously migrated to Georgetown to Sumter. Many of the workers settled along this street, leading to its name “Missouri Street”.

Workers did not just migrate from Missouri, however. Some came from Charlottesville, VA, Gettysburg PA, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Illinois, and even as far as Canada. The plant drew skilled workers of all kinds, as well as management and executives from larger cities like Detroit and New York City. As one of the largest cooperage plants in the south at this time, the business drew workers who migrated to Sumter from across the country.

The student-led application for this grant came from students at the University of South Carolina, led by Dr. Jessica Elfenbein. The students researched the Barrel Makers migration, then gathered and submitted the required materials for the historical marker as part of our Pomeroy Education Program.

This historic marker is also part of the Wood Basket of the World project at the University of South Carolina. The project has produced exhibits, oral histories, an anthology, and a mapping project, among many other educational efforts related to the history of the lumber industry in South Carolina. To learn more about the history of the lumber industry and its impact on South Carolina, visit the Wood Basket of the World site here: https://digital.library.sc.edu/woodbasket/