History – Buschman Street Cafe

Buschman Street Cafe

We are located in the Newman-Buschman Street neighborhood. Dive into the history of this special location.

Newman-Buschman Railroad Historic District

When the City of Hattiesburg was incorporated in 1884, the city limits were set as distances from the depot: the river on the east and a mile in all other directions. The first structures of the young town sprang up around the depot, so that the Newman-Buschman District, an elongated area stretching along the New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad track at the southeast edge of downtown, was among the first areas settled.

newman street

The Late 1800s

By 1890 when the population was 950, there existed on Newman Street (then East Front Street) between Main and Agnes (streets) a cattle shed, a commercial hotel, and two dwellings. At the eastern end of the district was the Wiscasset Lumber Mill which was at that time, still using lanterns for illumination.

The mill burned in 1893, and the site was acquired by the J.J. Newman Lumber Company, which began operations there in 1895. The next year, Fenwick Peck, an “aggressive Scranton, Pennsylvania lumberman,” joined forces with the Newman Company, providing new capital and leadership.

The new company developed a corporate community, constructing dwellings for executives and workers and structures for offices and support services, such as carpenter, machine and blacksmith shops. This private city supplied its own electricity, water system and fire protection.

growth and prosperity

Hattiesburg Growth

The J.J. Newman Lumber Company was seen by some as a disinterested northern capitalist company. As one early resident expressed it: “The Newman Lumber Company came here and they brought a lot of people from the North. They came here and took all our timber. They got it for nothing and sold it for an immense amount of money.”

And, another, who said, “Oh, yes. They just cut it. They had a mill running day and night – a big mill down there and it would run day and night. (They) just cut off the timber. Well, people sold it because they didn’t know any better.”

The company did serve, in the opinion of many, however, as the catalyst for the explosive growth and prosperity Hattiesburg experienced in the early part of the 20th century.

A fusion of Purposes

At 803 Newman Street is a company structure that represents a fusion of purposes. This structure was designed to serve as home for the mill manager and as an entertainment facility (guesthouse) for corporate guests.

On the lot next to this dwelling once stood the Newman Company Corporate Office Building. Even after the building was removed, the safe – big enough to shelter a vehicle – remained on site as a fitting remnant perhaps of the office of what was once one of the country’s most productive mills.

The Pennsylvania company and a number of other lumbering interests provided early lessons in resource management. The wife of the Newman corporate attorney was asked, “Did you realize what they were doing at the time they were cutting it (the virgin timber)?”

“No,” she replied, “we didn’t, and they didn’t realize either. Nobody seemed to realize it. If they had, they wouldn’t have done it like they did. Virgin pine is the prettiest stuff in the world when you see it, but you don’t see it anymore.”

Other surviving residences of this district include several once-identical Neo-classical cottages lining Buschman Street between Elm and Plum streets. Some Victorian and Colonial Revival cottages – most of them altered – remain on Newman Street. Several large structures that have served as boarding houses…remain near the depot, although a number of boarding houses that once lined Newman Street are lost.

The 1910 Hattiesburg Depot, one of the most architecturally significant buildings in the city, is now owned by the City of Hattiesburg and has undergone compete rehabilitation for use as a Multi-Modal Transportation Center and event space.

First Baptist Church, now on West Pine Street, was originally located on the corner of Main and Buschman streets (site of Town Square Park). The church was organized in 1884.

-From Historic Hattiesburg: The History and Architecture of Hattiesburg’s First Neighborhoods, City of Hattiesburg, 1990.