Research: Tram & Railroad Database

Code: 347
Corporate Name: Howeth & Howeth
Folk Name:
Incorporated:
Ownership: W. E. and C. W. Howeth. Keith Lumber Company.
Years of Operation: 1903 to 1904
Track Type:
Standard Gauge Wooden Rails
Track Length: Unknown
Locations Served: La Cerda Station (Keith's Switch) [Nacogdoches]
Counties of Operation: Nacogdoches
Line Connections: Texas and New Orleans at LaCerda Station or Keith's Switch
Track Information:
Tram Road Logging / Industrial Common Carrier Logging Camp
Equipment: Tram engine, logging cars, and several miles of standard gauge track
History: W. E. and C. W. Howeth were Nacogdoches logging contractors. In November 1902, they bought a logging outfit from H. L. Gray: twenty-four mules and fourteen sets of harnesses, and four log wagons. The following July, the brothers contracted with Keith Lumber Company to cut, load, and carry the latter's sawtimber from its holdings in Nacogdoches County to Beaumont. In return, Keith Lumber Company agreed to provide a locomotive and construct a tram bed into the Keith Lumber pineries. A newspaper article in June 1904 reported that La Cerda station at Keith's Switch was located two miles southeast of the Turner & Nabers (A. Tubbe) mill along the Texas & New Orleans railroad, a total of nine miles from Nacogdoches. Sawtimber was harvested by a tram road into the pineries from the main road, where it was loaded onto cars and shipped on the railroad to Voth, near Pine Island Bayou, more than a hundred miles, to be milled. County deed records indicate that Keith Lumber sold much of its holdings in Nacogdoches County to Hayward Lumber Company on 19 December 1903, for $4,243.50. The pine timber was located in the de la Cerda and the J. M. Mora grants. The Nacogdoches Weekly Sentinel reported on 11 February 1903 that Keith Lumber Company of Beaumont for $60,000 bought large amounts of timber in the eastern part of Nacogdoches County. A Mr. Morton and a George Meisenheimer are to survey a broad gauge tram road route for getting the timber to the tracks of the Texas and New Orleans. The connection should be located about four miles south of Nacogdoches. The paper stated that 300 men would be put to work within the next three weeks clearing the right of way. On 6 May 1903 the paper reported about the “new town six miles down the T & NO railroad to be built. It is to be called La Cerda the name of the old Mexican survey of land on which it is to be located. It proposes to abolish and obliterate all competitive points including Jean's Mill [Jeanes], Clevenger, Poe, etc. It is in the center of the surrounding pine woods. The new switch at the Keith Lumber Company is near by the big log camp, and some saloons of course are in it from start to finish. A church, school house, and hotel are to be built if the scheme materializes.”