Cedar shoppers were always pretty low class in the Hill country. That said I spent several summers chopping t cedar. Hard ass work.

I just ordered the book, it looks interesting. I'll update if it is.

I remember a family of cedar choppers working during the summer on the ranch next to ours in Bandera county in the 80s. They lived in an old converted school bus parked next to a live spring fed creek.

Anybody used to hunt on Mr. Allsup's ranch on 337 between Medina and Vanderpool?

Interesting. That's what we have always called people from Junction but I didn't know the history behind the term.

Cool articles - thanks for linking. Growing up in El Paso, I have never ever heard of cedar choppers

Have an old family friend whom everyone knows as "Wack", real name is Lynn, because as a kid he always wore ratty clothes and looked messy. Some one said he looked like a "Cedar Wacker" and the name stuck.

Interesting to know the story behind that.

Old Army Ag here, in my Corps outfit from 66-70 we had a bunch of guys from smaller towns, Mason, Llano and others in Central Texas. To be called a 'Cedar Chopper' was a good natured jab between those from that area. Being from Dallas, had never heard of that before then.

Mas89 said:

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I remember a family of cedar choppers working during the summer on the ranch next to ours in Bandera county in the 80s. They lived in an old converted school bus parked next to a live spring fed creek.

Anybody used to hunt on Mr. Allsup's ranch on 337 between Medina and Vanderpool?

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It's still in the same family.

Sgt. Hartman said:

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I will confess that ancestors chopped cedar on Bull Creek, west of Austin in the early 1900s. I can't begin to imagine clearing cedar with an axe during the summer was like. Had to make them tough

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I read that the area which now 360 and lake Austin surround was one of the poorest in the country before WW2. Driving through it now is hard to believe.

Glad to hear. We drove thru A.A. Ranch to get to ours. He was a great neighbor and would always come to visit when we were out there. Great stories as he had spent his entire life ranching there. I remember him training a new horse when he was almost 80. Said it would be his last.

My wife read the book; I haven't got to it yet.

I grew up in Utopia and we had a number of families who were cedar choppers. They had old Army trucks, the four/six wheel drive type. They tended to move around a lot and were pretty poor.

My grandmother lived across the street from the "cedar yard" where they stacked posts. If we misbehaved she would threaten to send us across the street to the cedar choppers.

A good cedar post will last a long time.

During my first year of marriage (1976), my wife and I moved near Oak Hill and lived for a while. She found a job at a typewriter co. on Lamar in Austin and I decided to cut cedar. Nutty Brown was at the time a seller of cedar posts. That was some of the hardest work I have ever done in my life and it didn't last very long. 30 year old men that did this looked to be 50.

I've read the book, and it's an interesting read about the history of the area where I currently live. It's a bit disjointed though, and skips around between families and time periods quite a bit. I gave up trying to keep all family stories straight and just treated it like a series of short stories.

Huh, I always thought cedar hackers was just a derogatory term we called the white trash/Ingramites.

Damn T-posts put an end to a way of life.

Haven't been able to confirm that I come from a line of cedar choppers, but papaw always had a few really good chopping axes and really knew how to swing them. He was a paupe fitter for Brown & Root, but being born in Adamsville/Lampasas in 1923, I am certain he axe cut his fair share of cedar. I had the privilege of a chainsaw, but built miles and miles of fence near Simms creek with the posts I cut. They are still there, and mostly tight, 40 years later.

Don't want to out anybody's identity here but trying to figure out what ranch had to drive Through AA ranch to get to. Was your ranch Mrs. L ranch? It borders on the back side of his along with rock chimney ranch. Been a while since I was back in that old country. Yes A A was a nice old man. Most of those old ranchers had a lesson for us to live by today. They all helped each other by being neighborly. That being said not one let their nose go over the others fence line without permission from the other. My grandfather said your business ends at your nose and it better stay on your side of the fence or get shot off. Wouldn't it be nice if all city folks knew those rules.

As for cedar I remember one year the pulp mill paying good money for cedar stumps. We cleaned up a lot of country by plucking stumps and hauling to the pulp mill. Guess I was a cedar chopper and never thought about it. We always harvested posts to build fence for the ranch but didn't cut them for a living. Just the pulp mill hauls.

Lloyd Ranch?

I would not want to be at a Saturday night dance with cedar choppers. High risk of inadvertently offending the wrong person. Those guys were tough as nails.

There was a girl in my high school class who came from one of those families. She wrote an essay about them titled "Evergreen Woodsmen".

No, off 337 on Clark Creek Rd we went thru Anderson's, then B. Bierschwale, then The Allsup ranch. Just past Mr. Allsups hunters camp, the road made a fork at his pens. To the right the road goes to the old ranch house and the left fork dead ended into our place.

John Graves wrote about Cedar Chopper culture from the Glenn Rose area.

Yes that is what I was asking. I know about where he is now. That country back up on top is good country if you can beat the cedar. It is rough but some of the prettiest country in Texas in my opinion. Grass is strong and wildlife abundant. Too many exotics introduced but still great part of Texas. A bunch of good old folks up in those hills. Just thought it was interesting that they went through Allsup place.

Martin Cash said:

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Damn T-posts put an end to a way of life.

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GOOD fence builders still use Cedar corner post and stays. T-posts can't replace those.

Years ago, I owned a ranch supply store. For a while, I paid a guy to cut cedar for me. He was the very definition of a cedar chopper. Only accepted cash. Drove a flatbed truck and would say things like, "That's a right smart pile of posts right there." He could cut, haul out, and stack posts that I could only handle with a fork lift.