| Historicial Development: | The Bennette-Davison Lumber Company owned a sawmill at Butlersburg, presumably near Conroe, in 1920. In 1923, Tom S. Falvey bought the facility for his Tom-Lee Lumber Company. It also owned part of the old J. O. H. Bennette tram road, the Conroe, Byspot & Northern (see its entry in the East Texas Tram Road Data Base). Tom-Lee Lumber sold a Mogul type Panama Canal No. 213 locomotive to Kirby Lumber Corporation in 1923. In 1924, Tom-Lee Lumber sold seventy stacks of lumber, which it contracted to dress and ship by railroad, to Foster-Bushman Lumber Company, for $5,000. The company soon thereafter had financial difficulties. In July, 1926, Lila Cochran, perhaps with interests in the nearby Grogan-Cochran Lumber Company, bought from H. C. Lilley, as a result of a sheriff's sale, a number of tenant houses, a dry kiln building, and the dollyways of Tom-Lee Lumber Company. The dollyways ran from the dry kiln to the San Jacinto Tie & Preserving Company.
H. S. Lilley mortgaged, in 1924, 2,500 crossties to the First National Bank of Cleveland, the ties located on the Tom Lee Lbr Co tram road in San Jacinto County. |