Same Business, New Name – Byler Wood Products
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Same Business, New Name – Byler Wood Products
Submitted by Kit Howes
In these parts you can still take the measure of a man by shaking his hand. A couple of years ago, in the early fall, I spent several hours walking my woods with Ervin Byler, a local Amish man who logs for a living and felled his first tree as a boy of sixteen. I didn’t really want to log the land, but as we discussed the health of the pine and hemlock it was becoming obvious that now was the time. Pine had reached its maturity and was ready to harvest. Woolly Adelgid, an invasive insect from Asia that feeds on eastern hemlock, had infected my stands of hemlock. It was only a matter of time before both the pine and hemlock died. It was a difficult decision to think about harvesting trees that looked healthy, but I knew that in a few years I would have a forest of dead standing timber. Ultimately, it was a common sense economic decision along with the measured reasoning from Ervin about managing forest land. As we talked about expectations, I took in his kind face framed with a straw hat and his deep brown eyes that spoke more than words. A verbal agreement and a handshake not only led to a solid business relationship but a friendship with Ervin and his family. I knew I had hired the right man for the job.
For the next year, my alarm clock was the roar of a Franklin skidder that could be heard in Scott and Morgan County pulling fifty foot lengths of logs, three at a time, of pine and hemlock up an old fire road to a landing behind my 
house. Ervin would hop off the skidder and cut the logs into lengths while Vincent would load the logging truck. Every move that Ervin took with a chainsaw and that Vincent took with the old grapple as he loaded logs was choreographed. No wasted motion. You knew that both men had spent years in the woods working in a very dangerous profession.
Ervin grew up on a farm in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, just south of Punxsutawney. He was the middle boy in a family of eight children and is named after his father. He continued that tradition by naming his third born, Ervin, who is sometimes called, maybe a bit facetiously, as three. In 2014, he moved his family to Tennessee and finally settled in Fentress County in 2017. Although a relative newcomer, he soon established himself in the community as someone who could be relied upon to do a job right. Logs from tracts of timber in this area would be trucked to his sawmill at his home off Heinss Road where his sons, Mahlon, Ervin, and Daniel would mill the logs into rough sawn boards. The hemlock would be used for new barns going up in this area, and the pine would be trucked to Gordon Wood Products in Mount Helen. Gordon would place the rough sawn pine on sticks to dry before loading 18 to 20,000 board feet of product into his kiln. When the wood was dried to a moisture content of 6% it would be moved into storage until he was ready to plane the boards for a custom order. V board and trim are the bulk of the business, and every order is processed to a customer’s specifications. When you drive by, you can’t help noticing huge stacks of lumber. To the untrained eye, it looks like there’s enough wood to last forever, but that inventory is soon gone. The business is always looking for raw material.
Doug Gordon’s knowledge of wood is encyclopedic, so I was concerned, along with many others in the community, when we started to hear rumors that he might be going out of business. Gordon Wood Products is a crown jewel in our rural area. Most folks buy there lumber from the big box stores, never knowing that a local business such as Doug’s can fill the same need at a competitive price with vastly superior quality.
Doug realized it would be a natural fit to sell his business to Ervin, and informal discussions about the sale of the business began last summer. An agreement was soon reached and transfer of ownership occurred on January 1, 2025. An open house was held on New Year’s Day with the Gordon and Byler families greeting friends and neighbors who stopped by for coffee and donuts. Sarah, Doug and Flo’s daughter, commented to me that the sale of the business was bittersweet, but it was going to the right person. Gordon Wood Products is now Byler Wood Products, located at 4308 Mount Helen Road, Allardt, TN 38504.
Doug would always welcome people with a cup of coffee and pleasant conversation. Ervin will do the same and invites you to stop by. And like Doug, doing business with Ervin is always done with a handshake. And if you are of a certain age, sit on the OLD MAN BENCH. The door is always open to customers and strangers alike. And don’t be deterred if there are no vehicles in the driveway. The whine of machinery inside the cavernous shop is an invitation to stop by and meet the new owner and place an order. Business hours are Monday through Friday from 7 am to 4 pm. The business phone number is 931-752-9593.
Kit Howes is a writer and retired career firefighter who lives in Armathwaite. He is the author of Hot Zone: Memoir of a Professional Firefighter.
