Lumber company in BS&C territory in 1910

[NW Mailing List]

Alex,

Thanks for the additional info, but I need some clarification.  In order to familiarize myself with somewhat unfamiliar territory I have tried to follow your descriptions on a map, but I have trouble understanding how the C. L. Ritter Lumber Co. mill at Gordon on the Clear Fork that flows south into the Guyandotte River upstream of Bailey Reservoir relates to a different Clear Fork a lot farther south which flows north into Tug Fork between Roderfield and Wilmore.  It was this latter Clear Fork which was followed by the N&W Clear Fork Branch.

Incidentally, in a online biography of C. L. Ritter it states that he relocated from Pennsylvania, "...and in 1889 came to West Virginia and entered the lumber business at Oakvale on East River."  So, it looks as though the N&W probably got his first business.

Gordon Hamilton

----- Original Message ----- 
  From: NW Mailing List 
  To: NW Mailing List 
  Sent: Monday, October 05, 2009 9:07 AM
  Subject: Re: Lumber company in BS&C territory in 1910


  The R.E. Wood Lumber Co had 27 miles of wooden track from Wyoming County down Buffalo Creek and then down to Sandy Huff where the the N&W connection was made.  My new book, "Billion Dollar Coalfield", will have a picture of Climax on wooden rails on that particular railroad.  C. L. Ritter took over that  property in the 1920s and kept the mill going at Sandy Huff through the 1920s.  C.L. Ritter also had the first mill at Gordon and timbered along the Cleak Fork.  He probably had a lumber railroad running down the Clear Fork which formed the basis of George L Carter's West Virgina Southwestern Railway that eventually became the Clear Fork Branch.

  Alex Schust
    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: NW Mailing List 
    To: 3N&W Mailing List 
    Sent: Sunday, October 04, 2009 10:06 PM
    Subject: Lumber company in BS&C territory in 1910


    Bluefield Daily Telegraph
    March 16, 1910

    STEEL RAILS
    ------
    Replacing Wooden Ones on Track of Lumber Company

        The C. L. Ritter Lumber Company, Inc., is rushing work on its Virginia plant and is replacing as fast as possible all the wooden track which it inherited from the Yellow Poplar Lumber Company, which it recently bought out.  The old company had Fifty-four miles of wooden rails and it is the intention of the new company to replace this track as rapidly as circumstances demand with steel rails.  The company will also go down Dismal about seventeen miles to reach a large tract of timber.  The company's offices are at Huntington, W. Va., while its working plant is now located at Whitewood, Va.  The C. L. Ritter Lumber Company, the Rockcastle Lumber Company and the Tug River Lumber Company have joint offices in Huntington.
    ------

    [I have seen old pictures of wooden track lumber railroads, but I never had any idea that there would be 54 miles of such track in one operation.  The attached picture of a C. L. Ritter Climax locomotive at Whitewood is from the collection of C. T. Stoner, and is presented here by courtesy of climaxlocomotives.com.  It appears to be on wooden rails.  Whitewood is in Buchanan County, Virginia, on Dismal Creek in an area that was remote in 1910, so it would be interesting to know how the lumber from that plant got to market.  According to Blackstock and Wilson's article in the July/August issue of The Arrow, W. M. Ritter's Big Sandy and Cumberland narrow gauge railroad reached Matney on Slate Creek in 1910, and Matney would be only three to four miles north of the C. L. Ritter line down Dismal Creek.  Could there have been a connection over the divide between Dismal and Slate creeks for C. L. Ritter lumber to go out on the BS&C?  Incidentally, the C. L. Ritter Lumber Co. is still in existence in Huntington according to the websites such as  www.manta.com. ]

    Gordon Hamilton


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