Research: Tram & Railroad Database

Code: 233
Corporate Name: Ware & Driskell Lumber Company tram road
Folk Name:
Incorporated:
Ownership: Ware & Driskell Company.
Years of Operation: 1926 to 1950s
Track Type:
Standard Gauge Wooden Rails
Track Length: Six and one-half miles
Locations Served: Sarber Jefferson
Counties of Operation: Marion
Line Connections:
Track Information:
Tram Road Logging / Industrial Common Carrier Logging Camp
Equipment: Unknown
History: The Ware & Driskell lumber mill was listed in various directories at Jefferson from 1928 to 1957. The mill itself was located some miles to the west of the town. A sawmill community with commissary and tenant housing was provided for the workers. Fred Tarpley's Jefferson: Riverport to the Old Southwest (1983) describes briefly the operation of the Ware & Driskell Lumber Company. Located at Sarber, nine miles west of Jefferson, in 1926, it filled a void after the the closing of the Boice & Clark Lumber Company's longtime operation at Jefferson. Driskell & Ware began as a shingle mill with two mules to a medium-sized operation that lasted until the 1950s. It had a commissary, tenant housing, and a tram road, which ran six and one-half miles from Black Cypress Bayou to White Oak. In 1947 the company employed 150 to 200 men. The Southern Lumberman's Directory of American Saw Mills and Planing Mills, 5th ed., in 1928 noted that Ware and Driskell, at Jefferson, Marion County, was cutting s40,000 feet daily of gum, oak, and shortleaf pine. It also operated a tram road.