Research: Tram & Railroad Database

Code: 126
Corporate Name: William Cameron & Company tram road
Folk Name:
Incorporated:
Ownership: William Cameron & Co; formerly Aldridge Lumber Company. Spring Creek Lumber Company.
Years of Operation: 1887 to 1912
Track Type:
Standard Gauge Wooden Rails
Track Length: About ten
Locations Served: Rockland (Jasper)
Counties of Operation: Jasper, Tyler, and Angelina
Line Connections:
Track Information:
Tram Road Logging / Industrial Common Carrier Logging Camp
Equipment: 1894: two locomotives and ten miles of track 1896: two locomotives, 18 log cars, 5 log wagons, and 60 oxen 1900: four locomotives, forty cars, fifteen miles of narrow gauge tracks Keeling lists ten miles of track, one geared and two rod locomotives, and both narrow and standard gauge track.
History: A Lufkin newspaper article reported in 1940 that “The first logging railroad in East Texas built in 1880 by the Spring Creek Lumber Co. in the northern part of Tyler county. Logs were first brought by oxen to the mill over a wooden tram which ran through the longleaf piney woods a distance of some eight miles. Later a small locomotive, or ‘dinkie' as they were usually called, operated over a wooden tramroad. This mill operated for about 10 years and was sold to W. H. Aldridge, who operated a small plant at Rockland on the T. & N. O. Aldridge had a narrow gauge tramroad which operated north and east of Rockland in Jasper and Angelina counties. This road extended to into a dense longleaf pine forest for a distance of approximately 12 miles. In 1899 Aldridge sold this mill and tramroad to Wm. Cameron Co. They in turn extended the tramroad approximately 25 miles, bought larger engines, built the track generally on the ground with very few cuts and fills, and strange to say, they had very few wrecks. Cameron Co. operated this mill until about 1910, when they completed cutting their timber and closed the mill.” Certain factual errors exist in the above account, but the narrative is an accurate reflection of the development of the tram road. The mill was sold to W. Hal Aldridge in 1890, and J. W. Delaney stayed on as a director to form the Aldridge Lumber Company with Aldridge in 1891. By late 1892, the mill's tram road was bridging the Neches River into Angelina County toward Lufkin. Angelina County records of 1893 and 1894 note that the tram operated with a 22-ton Mogul locomotive and a smaller one along about ten miles of track. An Angelina County records notes that in 1896 the two locomotives shuttled 18 log cars. The mill burned in late 1894 or early 1895, but was rebuilt and operating again by August 1895. William Cameron and Company acquired the Aldridge Lumber Company's sawmill at Rockland in 1898. Four daily log trains from the woods to the mill pond kept the mill supplied with plenty of logs. In 1900, fifteen miles of tracks took care of four engines and forty logging cars. Three locomotives were used over fourteen miles of tram lines in 1905. In 1906, according to the American Lumberman, the narrow gauge tram road was fifteen miles long, and rolling stock included four locomotives and forty carts. In 1908 and 1909, L. P. Scarborough rendered taxes on a d valuation of one mile of tram road in Jasper County. By 1912, the timber was cut out, the mill closed, and the tram road dismantled.