| History: | Three miles north of Dayton, near the old Green's Ferry road, to the Texas & New Orleans at Dayton. By 1891, W. F. Blair was shipping lumber from that mill, probably over a wooden rail tram line which connected with the Texas & New Orleans railroad at Dayton. The mill operated until at least late 1906 when it received a poor credit rating in the January 1907 published records of the Lumbermen's Credit Association, but possibly as late as 1915 when the Blair family moved to Oklahoma.
The tramroad may never have been converted from wooden rails and animal power to steel rails and locomotives. If it were converted, it would have had to been after 1899. On the 1899 County Tax Roll, W. F. Blair and Company recorded owning1,053 acres, thirteen horses and mules, five wagons, and a steam engine and boiler worth $400. Because the sawmill cutting capacity was only 10,000 feet daily, it is quite possible that Blair may have continued using one of the last wooden trams in East Texas. |