The fifty-seven acre Southern Forest Heritage Museum located in Long Leaf, LA, is the oldest complete sawmill facility in the South. The museum was developed from a sawmill that once provided a livelihood for hundreds of families in the area between 1892 and 1969 when the mill was abandoned. Because of the superior quality of logs milled at Long Leaf, its lumber was in high demand for shipbuilding during World War II.
The Southern Forest Heritage Museum & Research Center was formed in October 1992. Concerned individuals saw the opportunity to turn the site of the abandoned mill into a not-for-profit museum, which could tell the story of the southern pine forest ("Southern pine" refers to a group of pines that are typically longleaf, shortleaf, slash and loblolly).
The museum complex contains the most complete collection of steam-powered logging and milling equipment known to exist and the commissary is one of the original buildings remaining from the once thriving company town. This store now serves as the museum entrance and interpretive center.
Built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia, PA, in 1923 at a cost of $29,520, Ten Wheeler (4-6-0) type #106 was a duplicate of wood burning Crowell & Spencer Lumber's #400, shown later on this page, but delivered as an oil burner with a firebox lined with fire brick but containing no grate at all.
The Red River & Gulf Railroad was incorporated in 1905 to haul lumber from sawmills at Longleaf, Meridian and Glenmora to connections with the Southern Pacific, Rock Island and Texas & Pacific railroads.
The line from Lecompte to Long Leaf, LA, had been built by the Crowell & Spencer Lumber Company and was sold to the RR&G at the time
of the latter’s incorporation. The railroad
expanded during the 1910s and 1920s to a peak of just over twenty-three miles but began to
decline in the 1930s. It finally ceased operations in 1954.
#106 worked all of its career on Crowell & Spencer lines and was the last RR&G engine in service, pulling the last train on 31st March 1953 and was retired the following day.
#106 went into storage and was kept serviceable for a number of years at Long Leaf.
It was finally put in the car shop of the Southern Forest Heritage Museum & Research Center,
where it remains to this day.
Mogul type (2-6-0) locomotive #202 was built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia, PA, in 1913 for the Meridian Lumber Co., owner of a 4.36 mile line from a junction with the Red River & Gulf Railroad at Cocodrie Junction to a mill at Meridian, LA. The company was set up to purchase timber located in the Evangeline Parish east of Bayou Cocodrie.
The Meridian Lumber Co., railroad was bought by the RR&G some time before 1920. In 1923, the Meridian mill burned down and the operation was moved to Alco, LA.
#202 weighs 86,700 lbs, 73,000 lbs on its 44” drivers, with an 11’ driver wheelbase and 18’ engine wheelbase. With Stephenson valve gear and 16” x 24” cylinders, it has a 16.4 sq ft grate, 102 sq ft firebox and total heating surface of 1,087 sq ft. Operating at a boiler pressure of 160 psi, it delivered 18,991 lbs tractive effort. The tender weighs 80,000 light and has a capacity of 3½ cords of wood and 4,000 gallons of water.
During the 1930s, #202 operated out of Sieper and Alco but, when the Sieper mill shut down just before WWII, it moved to Long Leaf.
#202 was the last locomotive in operation on the Crowell log tram in 1954 when it appears to have been lettered for the Crowell Lumber Company.
It is the only surviving cabbage stack wood burning steam
locomotive in
Louisiana.
#400 was built as a wood burner by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia, PA, in 1919 for the Crowell & Spencer Lumber Company. It operated on the Red River & Gulf Railroad hauling twenty car log trains daily the forty miles from Hutton to Long Leaf. After 1944, it was used to haul log trains from east of Meridian to the Long Leaf mill.
A Ten Wheeler type (4-6-0) locomotive with Walschaert valve gear and 19” x 26” cylinders, the locomotive has 21’ 10” engine wheelbase and 11’ 4” driver wheelbase.
#400 weighs 140,000 lbs, 110,000 lbs on its 52” drivers and has a 28.3 sq ft grate, 138 sq ft firebox and total heating surface of 1,899 sq ft including 325 sq ft superheating. Operating at a boiler pressure of 180 psi, it delivered 27,617 lbs tractive effort. The tender weighs 100,000 lbs light with a capacity of 5,000 gallons of water and 2,200 gallons of oil.
#400 was converted to burn coal in 1923. It was last used in February 1953 and, at the end of the month, was retired. It has stood derelict at Long Leaf ever since.
The cars ran until 1957, making two round trips each day. They remained in maintenance of way service until the FC&G became part of the newly formed Illinois Central Gulf Railroad.
M4 operates occassionally at the center.
Motor Car M4 was built in 1937 in the Fernwood, Columbia & Gulf Railroad shops in Fernwood, MS, as a copy of M3, built in 1936 by the Kalamazoo Railway Supply Co.
The car was used as a passenger train between Fernwood and Columbia, MS.
