Research: Tram & Railroad Database

Code: 336
Corporate Name: Kirby Lumber Company Camp #3
Folk Name:
Incorporated:
Ownership:
Years of Operation:
Track Type:
Standard Gauge Wooden Rails
Track Length:
Locations Served: Jasper
Counties of Operation:
Line Connections:
Track Information:
Tram Road Logging / Industrial Common Carrier Logging Camp
Equipment:
History: anders-Trotti Tram Company appeared in the January 1905 Reference Book of the Lumbermen's Credit Association as manufacturers of yellow pine lumber at Buna. In LCA edition of 1907, only Kirby Lumber Company is listed for Buna, and also is noted as a manufacturer of yellow pine lumber, and is once again listed for Buna. The conclusion is that Sanders-Trotti sold its small mill to Kirby Lumber Company. The former Trotti mill passes out of existence, undoubtedly submerged into the Bessmay operation. Kirby Lumber kept a logging payroll office here for its 250 loggers. In 1906, the American Lumberman noted that Kirby was running fifteen miles of standard gauge logging tram road at Buna with two locomotives. By 1910, according to a company Schedule of Sawmills, Planers, Etc., To December 31st, 1910, Buna was known as Camp #3 with $17, 528.86 worth of equipment, including a water works, an electric light plant, store buildings, miscellaneous buildings, and machinery and tools. The sawmill operation had apparently been incorporated with the much larger operation two miles away at Bessmay. Joseph Carroll of the Long Manufacturing cartel of Beaumont began logging the Buna area about 1885. Under Kirby Lumber, Buna became a major logging center, having to deliver 250,000 feet daily of stumpage to the large sawmill maw of the Bessmay milling operation. It reached its zenith in 1905 and was logged out by 1909. The company kept a hotel under Mrs. Belle Pierre, and operated supposedly a good school under Professor T. S> Brady and Miss Maude Ney. With the end of logging here, the community did not die. It had already diversified its economy into livestock, corn, and truck products, according to the March 11, 1905, edition of the Beaumont Enterprise.