| History: | The company's original animal tram road, known as the “Cummings Express,” which was never incorporated with the State of Texas, ran east from Wallisville to Turtle Bayou, then north to Spinks Creek and into south Liberty County. At Clark, the logging camp provided semi-permanent housing, a blacksmith shop, and a commissary. The regular mill force was a mixture of whites, Mexicans, and African- Americans, so it is reasonable to expect the logging force was mixed, too. The company continued to log in Liberty County until at least 1909, for it operated a logging camp at Clark that year.
Pine, cypress, white ash, and cottonwood were logged and shipped from the area to Wallisville. Cummings Export operated its own small fleet of steamers. By 1898, it was using two steam tugs and several barges. One was the venerable, Horatio, bought from the Liberty Lumber Company, after its sawmill's destruction during the great storm of 1897, for shipping lumber to the gulf for export, along with the steam tugs Helen and Dick.
The great storm of 1915 destroyed the Wallisville mill and ended Cummings' sawmilling and logging operations in Chambers and Liberty counties.
A photocopy in “The Photographic Heritage of Wallisville, Chambers County, Texas” catches a wood-fueled, locomotive of the Cummings Express in operation about 1901.
Cummings began building a tram line from the west side of the Trinity River into its timber in the Dugat annd Dorsett leagues (LV 08.21.03). The following February, the grading was completed and the tracks had been laid through the Dugat, Dorsett, and Williams leagues. The small Shay engine was to be put in opeation the following week. (LV 02.12.04). |