Research: Tram & Railroad Database

Code: 323
Corporate Name: West Lumber
Folk Name:
Incorporated:
Ownership: West Lumber Company
Years of Operation: 1907 to 1919
Track Type:
Standard Gauge Wooden Rails
Track Length: Fifteen
Locations Served: Westville Trinity
Counties of Operation: Trinity and Houston
Line Connections: Trinity and Sabine at Westville
Track Information:
Tram Road Logging / Industrial Common Carrier Logging Camp
Equipment: Keeling: fifteen rod locomotives
History: Keeling noted that the Williams Lumber Company operated as seven-mile tram road from Thicket. Robert L. Schaadt and Thelma Y'Barbo See write that G. W. Brown and David J. Williams operated a sawmill at Thicket from 1904 until 1917. Thicket would have been just north of Conroe and about three miles west of Bragg. The 1907 LCA credit rating reference does list a Williams Lumber Company at Williams, in Hardin County, with access to the Santa Fe at Votaw. Because of the often geographical inexactness of the articles and listings of the first decade, and the fact that Thicket and Williams are just to the west of Bragg, it appears that the mill was located in one area, rather than several. The American Lumberman on March 25, 1905 reported: “Williams and Gunsendorf have begun work on their new mill at Bragg, on the Center branch of the Santa Fe. The firm, which has a capital stock of $25,000, owns 640 acres of stumpage.” The Williams Lumber Company plant was producing 45,000 feet of lumber daily in 1906, according to the Southern Industrial and Lumber Review. The ownership of the Williams Lumber Company consisted of G. W. Brown, David J. Williams, and H.P. Gunsendorf (or Geisendorf). David J. Williams is probably a son of David J. Williams, Sr., who operated a mill in or near Kountze for several years in the 1880s. It was also known as the Brown & Williams Mill. George Brown and David Williams operated a sawmill at Batson, in Hardin County, at the height of its oil boom from 1902 to 1904.