| History: | The Columbia Lumber Company mill at Oakhurst needed a trunk connection at Dodge with the International & Great Northern. In 1899, D. J. Young of Chicago, Illinois, incorporated the Trinity Valley Railroad, with the intent to build a railline from Dodge to Beaumont. No building was done. Young leased the tracks to the Columbia Lumber Company, which constructed the six-mile road from Oakhurst to Dodge. When the Columbia Lumber Company incorporated the railroad in 1901, its name was changed to the Trinity Valley Southern Railroad Company. The Railroad Commission of Texas recognized the railroad as a common carrier that year. In 1906, the American Lumberman noted that the railroad had six miles of standard gauge track with five more under construction, three locomotives, and twenty-seven cars. W. L. Thomas was the auditor.
The Palmetto Lumber Company also had a mill at Oakhurst within two miles of the tapline. In 1908, Palmetto President, A. C. Ford, and a Huntsville banker named W. S. Gibbs, bought out the Columbia mill, its timber, and the railway. Gibbs took the railroad and $200,000 in Palmetto Lumber bonds. In order to eliminate its bonds to Gibbs, Palmetto Lumber gave Gibbs timber holdings in exchange for the bonds. Although Gibbs had no financial interest in Palmetto, the officers of the railroad were the same as for Palmetto Lumber. The Southern Industrial and Lumber Review reported, in 1909, that A. C. Ford ended up with the eighteen-mile tapline in his name. The tram holdings in 1908 consisted of a standard gauge steel tram road, with two locomotives, a McGiffert log loader, twenty-five tram cars, and horses, mules, oxen, log wagons, harness, and tools.
The ICC found in the Tapline Case that the railroad “operated primarily as a facility of the Palmetto Lumber Company.” In addition to the six-mile tapline, Palmetto operated approximately another twenty miles of unincorporated logging trams into the surrounding timber. The timber brought in by the logging trams was milled at the Palmetto plant and then shipped over the tapline to its connection at Dodge. The daily train consisted of the locomotive (there were a total of two in 1910), logging cars, and a combination baggage-express-passenger-mail car. The overwhelming amount of inbound and outbound traffic was for the Palmetto Lumber Company's benefit.
The Palmetto mills at Oakhurst operated until the early 1930s. Both Zlatkovich and Reed report that the line was abandoned in 1936.
Before the purchase of the tapline, Palmetto Lumber ran its own tramroad. The Southern Industrial and Lumber Review, in 1904 reported that the road, described as one of the best extended several miles into the Palmetto timber holdings. It used a locomotive, logging wagons, horses, and mules to harvest and ship the logs to the mill.
In 1918, Palmetto Lumber Company executed a mortgage with Gibbs Bros & Co and filed in the San Jacinto County Chattel Mortgage Register. Equipment mortgaged included a “main line standard gauge logging road, extending about ten miles Southeasternly, direction from Oakhurst, switches, sidings, all steel rails, ties, bolts, & other materials, angle bars, splces, bolts, spikes, switch stands, five standard gauge locomotives, two log loaders, all horses, mules, Oxen wagons, cars, harndess, and saddles.” The mortgage was “Cancelled by order of Gibbs Bros & Co Dated 2-16-23. On December 11, 1922, Palmetto Lumber Co bought a Baldwin steam locomotive (No. 7) from Foster Lumber Co for $1,600.
Keeling listed a tram logging road of Columbia Lumber Company at Oakhurst.
Palmetto Lumber Company, in 1921, opened a logging front at what became known as Pinedale. Located about seven miles northwest of Huntsville, between what is now Farm Road 247 and I-45, the camp was on the Thomas Stevens League and the Archibald McGee survey. Palmetto Lumber built a tram extension to the pinery from its common charter, the Trinity Valley Southern. The front logged only for Palmetto Lumber until 1923, when Paul Sanderson, the President of Texas Long Leaf Lumber, took over Palmetto Lumber Company (its name changed to Oakhurst Lumber Company) and the old Thompson and Tucker family operations at Trinity and New Willard. Sawtimber to the Trinity mills were routed over the tracks of the International & Great Northern. The Oakhurst mill closed by 1935, and the Trinity Valley Southern route was closed. Sawtimber continued to be shipped over the tracks to Trinity until 1939. By then, the timber had been exhausted, and the camp was closed. The community housed no more than 600 people, living in either two-room shotgun houses or four-room, square, clapboard dwellings. Drinking wells were dug throughout the town. The commissary fronted one end of the town while a two-room school house was built at the other end. Drinking wells were dug throughout the town. Students, until 1934, received schooling through the tenth grade, but afterwards the advanced grades were bused to Crabb's Prairie. A monthly charge was made against a worker's pay for medical services, which permitted service and prescriptions without additional charge. With the closing of the Pinedale front, workers were either transferred to Trinity or to other logging operations. |