| History: | Southern Industrial and Lumber Review wrote that the tram road was built in 1905, at first to carry material from the Santa Fe connection at Brookeland to the backwoods two and a half miles away to build the lumber facility, which would harvest 48,000 acres of pineries. Logging operations were mechanized, rolling stock consisting of two 37-ton Shay locomotives; a steam skidder, with four 1,000-foot lines for dragging the logs to the track from the woods; and a four-man crew operating a McGiffert loader and skidder for placing the logs on the cars. Animal teams were not necessary. The operation could skid and load 150,000 feet of lumber per day.
By 1906, according to the American Lumberman, the tram road consisted of four miles and four more under construction. Equipment included two locomotives, thirty logging cars, and one steam loader. In 1908, Gilmer rendered taxes for Alexander Gilmer Lumber Company to Jasper County on a d valuation of $2,500 on two and a half miles of tram road and $9,000 on rolling stock. The majority of the tram road must have been located in Sabine County. In 1909, the tram mileage still was two and a half miles.
R. R. Cahal, who had an excellent recall of events in the history of the Alexander Gilmer Lumber Company, wrote in 1978, that Gilmer commissary practices resulted in lower prices at the main commissary and the logging Front “than were available elsewhere in the area. A specially built and commodious commissary car was maintained at the logging front for the convenience of workers and the natives living thereby.”
Strapac's work notes that the Alexander Gilmer Lumber Company at Orange, Texas, operated nine locomotives and tram engines at various times. [No 2 was delivered at Brookeland, where Gilmer had a sawmill plant three miles distant at Remlig. No 3 was sold to Martin Wagon Company of Lufkin, which had sawmill plants at Lufkin and another in the county. No 5 was sold to Weaver Brothers & Thompson at Latexo, Texas. |