By that time, according to land records, Al Brumfield was the chief businessman in Harts. In 1890, he bought 150 acres of property, including a 100-acre tract from John W. Runyon valued at 188 dollars. (For some reason, deed records imply that Hollena bought it from John Dingess and not Runyon for $525 on August 7, 1891.) The following year, he bought 272 acres on Frances Creek, probably for timbering, and improved the value of a building on his land to 200 dollars (likely a home, store or sawmill). In 1892, his recently widowed mother deeded him 100 acres on Guyan River. That same year, he bought 50 acres on Fourteen Mile Creek (presumably for timbering) and improved the value of his building to 500 dollars. In June, he acquired the old 330-acre Toney farm at the mouth of Harts Creek. He bought out all of the heirs (including his mother), then paid Bill Fowler and Isaac Adkins $1550. Thereafter, he spent three years building that beautiful white home I saw on my first trip to Harts with Lawrence Haley in 1991.

By the early 1890s, the local timber industry was in full swing. “Considerable poplar timber has been cut out of Lincoln county for the last twenty years, and all the walnut that ever was, but there still remain magnificent tracts of tens of thousands of acres of timber which have never been touched by the woodman’s axe,” according to The Mountain State: A Description of the Natural Resources of West Virginia (1893). “Fully one-half the county is yet covered with magnificent oak forests, and the greater portion of this with poplar also. There is also much ash, beech, some chestnut, a little pine, and some other timber, all of which may be easily gotten to market by means of the Guyandotte. Little timber has ever been sawed at home, it being cheaper to float the logs out and saw them closer to market. Even staves are taken out in this way, not being sawed or split till they have reached a railroad point. The northern portion of the county has been cleared and settled to a greater extent than the southern [Harts], where the greater part of the timber that is still standing is to be found.”

Cashing in on the timber boom was Al Brumfield. In the mid-1890s, however, Brumfield and his capitalistic ventures suffered a minor setback: at that time, the traditional post offices were discontinued and relocated in the backcountry away from the Guyandotte River. (Harts was discontinued in 1891 and Warren in 1894.) For a brief time, Harts residents were left with a Fourteen address, named after nearby Fourteen Mile Creek. Andrew Elkins, an old Confederate veteran, served as postmaster there from 1880 until 1898. But there was hope for Brumfield and Harts: there was talk of a railroad coming to the Guyandotte Valley, scheduled to pass smack dab through town, connecting Logan County with Cabell County towns near the Ohio River.

By 1899, Brumfield owned nine tracts of land totaling 714.5 acres worth $2,774. On his property were three buildings valued at $150, $150 and $750 — all of these figures not including the money he was making from his log boom, store, saloon, ferry, gristmill, and orchard. The next year, in 1900, he re-established the Harts Post Office and, within a few years, the local economy shifted back to the banks of the Guyan. It was a prosperous time: timber was in its hey-day and the railroad was on its way. “Allen, son of the late Paris Brumfield, who has a big lot of property at and near the mouth of Hart’s creek, says times have been good,” according to The Cabell Record of July 26, 1900. “He has a pretty home and one of the finest store-houses along the river.” Later in October, The Record reported: “Times were never in better shape along the river. Timbermen are active and saw mills are busy. The farmers are doing well, and the new railroad is giving employment to many.”