THNOC's founder L. Kemper Williams and his family ran a cypress business in Patterson, Louisiana. This 1920s video shows the operations of the company. Kemper's father Frank B. Williams ran the successful cypress lumber business in the swamps of southern Louisiana, using his experience in the railroad industry to make labor-intensive work more efficient with technology. The F. B. Williams Cypress Lumber Company grew to become one of the largest lumber firms in the country, and Mr. Williams became known as the “Cypress King.”