Research: Tram & Railroad Database

Code:	134
Corporate Name:	The Lufkin South & Southeastern R. R. Co.
Folk Name:
Incorporated:
Ownership:	Interests from Angelina County Lumber Company, Clawson Lumber Company, and Lufkin Manufacturing Company.
Years of Operation:	1892 to 1896
Track Type:	Standard Gauge Wooden Rails
Track Length:	Unknown
Locations Served:	Lufkin Angelina
Counties of Operation:	Angelina
Line Connections:
Track Information:	Tram Road Logging / Industrial Common Carrier Logging Camp
Equipment:	Probably Shay “dinkies” and Baldwin eighteen-ton locomotives, plus an assortment of logging tram cars. Animals would have been used for skidding logs to the tram cars.
History:	St. Clair Reed records that The Lufkin South & Southeastern R. R. Co. was incorporated on December 19, 1892, and that the operation of the railway eventually lapsed. Zlatkovich has no record of the company at all. A company letterhead, dated January 13, 1896, reveals the officers to be E. J. Mantooth, President; S. W. Henderson, Vice President; B. F. Bonner, Secretary and Treasurer; J. H. Kurth, General Manager; and Sam Wiener, Jr., as General Auditor. Offices were located at Lufkin, in Angelina County. The East Texas Sawmill Data Base reveals that these gentlemen represented the interests of at least two, and possibly more, Angelina County lumber companies. Definitely involved were the Angelina County Lumber Company at Keltys (Kurth, Wiener, and Henderson), who had extended the original Kelty tram road, and the Lufkin Manufacturing Company (Mantooth). It is possible that because of the presence of a member of the Bonner family, the Tyler Car & Lumber Company, at Michelli, and the Clawson Lumber Company, at Clawson, may have been involved. Clawson and Michelli were linked at the Durst Station Cotton Belt connection by the Tyler Car & Lumber Company's tapline logging tram, the Sabine Pass, Alexandria & Northwestern Ry. Co. All of these companies, with the exception of Lufkin Manufacturing, about which little is known, were operating medium-sized sawmills of approximately 40,000-feet capacity in Angelina County. These companies were operating logging tram roads. Only Angelina County Lumber would survive. The Henderson Land & Lumber Company, a business evolved from Angelina County Lumber, leased from Foster Lumber Company the former Clawson Lumber Company mill from 1903 until its closing in 1908. Lufkin Manufacturing Company is not known to exist after 1896. If Tyler Car & Lumber Company were involved in the venture, it was shortlived, for it sold its operation and logging tram to William Cameron & Company in March, 1898. Cameron closed that facility in late 1902 or early 1903. The most logical explanation is that the individuals pooled their investments and interests in a joint tram logging operation. The Henderson-Kurth-Wiener combination probably bought out the other interests, and The Lufkin South and Southeastern Ry Co. became the genesis for the Angelina & Neches River R. R. Company, the longtime tapline of the Angelina County Lumber Company.