| Equipment: | 1896: an eleven-ton Shay locomotive, twelve log cars, thirty-six oxen, three log carts, two wagons, six miles of 20# steel tram rails, and one-half mile of 35# rails.
1900: tram road, eight miles of twenty-pound steel rails, three and a half miles of thirty-five pound steel rails, one eleven-ton Shay locomotive, twenty log cars, a water car, a caboose, four log carts, and four horses. |
| History: | The Leondias operation was run by the Arnold family, a confusing group in Montgomery County sawmilling history. In July 1896, Owen Arnold defaulted on an 1887 loan for $5000 from John L. and Clara Arnold and signed over to the Armolds (John and Clara) an eleven-ton Shay locomotive, twelve log cars, thirty-six oxen, three log carts, two wagons, six miles of 20# steel tram rails, one-hlaf mile of 35# rails, and all the pine timber on the Mary Connor league and other lands. On August 1, 1896, Owen Arnold sold the commissary and stock at Arnold's Switch for $400 to J. B. Ethridge. Ethridge then sold the commissary and stock for $400 to John Arnold, on November 26, 1896. On September 29, 1898, John L. Arnold sold 20,000 feet of lumber to Foster Lumber Company for $800. On June 18, 1900, J. L. Arnold and Clara Watkins (Arnold?) sold for $20,000 the sawmill, the planing mill, and assets to Trinity River Lumber Company, a division of Foster Lumber Company.
Trinity River Lumber Company was busy extending its tramming operations. In October, 1898, John T. Carter, J. C. Collard, and Harriet Thompson, in selling their timberlands to the company, agreed to let it build a tramway across Little's Creek to the lumber plant.
The logging assets in the sale of 1900 reveal that the tramroad had been extended. The assets included the tram road, eight miles of twenty-pound steel rails, three and a half miles of thirty-five pound steel rails, one eleven-ton Shay locomotive, twenty log cars, a water car, a caboose, four log carts, four horses, six mule dollies, fifteen hand dollies, twelve saw trimmers, a million feet of sawed lumber, the commissary and stock.
Foster Lumber Company publications reveal that the Trinity River Lumber Company owned and operated a sawmill at Leonidas (Arnold's Switch), beginning in 1897. This mill was rated at 60,000 feet per day in 1904, but was probably dismantled before September 1906. At that time it did not appeat in a list of sawmills published in the Southern Industrial and Lumber Review.
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