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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>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.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Alex Schust</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=nw-mailing-list@nwhs.org href="mailto:nw-mailing-list@nwhs.org">NW
Mailing List</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=nw-mailing-list@nwhs.org
href="mailto:nw-mailing-list@nwhs.org">3N&W Mailing List</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Sunday, October 04, 2009 10:06
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Lumber company in BS&C
territory in 1910</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Tunga size=2>Bluefield Daily Telegraph<BR>March 16,
1910</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV align=center><FONT size=4>STEEL RAILS</FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=center>------</DIV>
<DIV align=center><STRONG>Replacing Wooden Ones on Track of Lumber
Company</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV align=left> </DIV>
<DIV align=left> 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.</DIV>
<DIV align=center>------</DIV>
<DIV align=left> </DIV>
<DIV align=left>[<EM>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 <U>The Arrow</U>, 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 <A
href="http://www.manta.com">www.manta.com</A>. </EM>]</DIV>
<DIV align=left> </DIV>
<DIV align=left><FONT face=Script size=6>Gordon Hamilton</FONT></DIV>
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