Research: Tram & Railroad Database

Code: 68
Corporate Name: Plank logging tram road
Folk Name:
Incorporated:
Ownership: Owners were the Noble & Sheldon Lumber Company, J. W. Middlebrook and Brothers, and J. A. Bentley & Company.
Years of Operation: 1882 to 1896
Track Type:
Standard Gauge Wooden Rails
Track Length: Unknown
Locations Served: Plank, or Noble's Switch, about seven miles north of Kountze (Hardin)
Counties of Operation: Hardin
Line Connections: Texas & New Orleans switch at Plank
Track Information:
Tram Road Logging / Industrial Common Carrier Logging Camp
Equipment: Originally wooden rails over which mules pulled logging cars. Upgraded to a Baldwin Mogul locomotive, and possibly requiring iron rails to replace the wooden rails.
History: The firm of Noble and Sheldon Lumber Company purchased Joseph M. Tryon's sawmill in 1882 and relocated it two miles north of the Tryon site. The new site became known as Noble's Switch and, later, Plank. It was sold in 1885 to J. W. Middlebrook and Brothers. The mill's capacity was increased from 20,000 board feet per day to 45,000 board feet per day in 1887 and 25,000 feet on the planer. By the following year the mill was rated at 50,000 feet and then employed 60 men. Bridge timbers were a specialty. The mill was sold to J.A. Bentley and Company in 1890, but R. Oscar Middlebrook stayed on to work for the new owners. The mill cut around 60,000 board feet per day. The timber was cut out by November 1896, and the mill was dismantled and moved to Zimmerman, Louisiana, where Bentley and Zimmerman owned another mill. The logging tram equipment worked sixty men and consisted of, in 1888, five miles of tramway and nine cars. The lack of a locomotive meant that the tramroad was probably of wooden rails, over which logging cars were towed by mules in oxen. With the addition, in 1895, of a Baldwin Mogul locomotive, the wooden rails would have been converted to steel.