| History: | The Tram Arthur Logging Company was the sawtimber cutting and hauling operation of the Bancroft Lumber Company, headquartered at Orange, Texas. It had been in operation for years prior to 1900, logging in Newton and Orange counties. The tram road extended from its terminus, Tram Arthur, on the Sabine River into the pineries.
The Galveston Daily News reported in 1900 that “The Bancroft lumber company bought two and a half miles of steel rails from the M. T. Jones lumber company this week and sent the steamboat J. B. Griffith to Beckham's Bluff, where the tram formerly operated. Thos. McDonnell, was taken up, to load the rails and deliver them at Tram Arthur. The rails will be used in extending the Tram Arthur's main line and will carry the end eight and a half miles out from the landing. The extension of the main line and feeders being put down will open up enough standing timber to run the Bancroft lumber company's mill a year, without further track laying.
No drive will be attempted from the upper river this month, but as Tram Arthur is dumping over 90,000 feet a day and by the end of September will have abut 4,000,000 feet of logs in the water at Whitman's landing, there will be a drive started from there on that date if they get water to float freely. Slight rise was reported from Belgrade and Whitman's this week, but it soon subsides.”
Beckham's Bluff Tram Company had been a small, independent logging outfit operating west of the river. According to W. T. Block, the tram road of Beckham intersected the river at Stark's Landing. [This logging road must have been the one that became the genesis for the Tram Arthur Logging Company road of the Bancroft Lumber Company]. |