East Texas Transportation Company, 1887 - c.1895  
 
 
 
 
The East Texas Transportation Company was the logging railroad serving the mills of the Queen City Lumber and the Sheets Brothers Lumber Company at Queen City and Atlanta in Cass County. The company filed a chartered on March 10, 1887 and built a 36-inch narrow-gauge railroad from Atlanta, through Queen City to Bloomburg in Texas, then through Miller County in southwest Arkansas to the Spearman community on the Red River in Louisiana. In 1890 the road was leased by logging contractor Ed Rand who supplied logs to the Queen City mills. The hoped-for traffic did not materialize along the line, and records indicate that operations likely ceased by 1895. In 1897 a new company, the Texas Arkansas & Louisiana Railway, purchased and improved the former right-of-way between Atlanta and Bloomburg and completed a standard-gauge line to connect the three communities and to serve as a bridge route between the Texas & Pacific at Atlanta and the Kansas City Southern at Bloomburg. The TA&L operated until 1920, when operations were discontinued and the rails were removed.
  
 
     
     
 
East Texas Transportation Co. at Atlanta, Texas
  
     
 

Perhaps the best map of the former route of the East Texas Transportation Company was issued with Rand-McNally's 1901 edition of their Indexed Atlas of the World, six years after the likely removal of the E.T.T.'s rails. Here the line is noted as "T.A. & L." denoting the "Texas Arkansas & Louisiana" Railway, which used the former E.T.T. right-of-way only between Atlanta and Bloomburg. Lucky for historians that the map shows not only those stations, but former points along the East Texas Transportation including Joab, Era Station and Kiblah in Arkansas, and the line's terminus at the Louisiana community of Spearman in Caddo Parish. [Click image for more information on this map].

  
 
 
 
 
  1887  
  Charter notice rom the March 10, 1887 Dallas Morning News:  
 
     
 
     
 
Filed today. East Texas Transportation Company was chartered today. To construct tramways from Atlanta to lumber mills. Capital: 100,000. Incorporators: Ed F. Sheets, W. G. Wadley, T. W. Duncan, W. C. Brown, H. J. Allen, W. H. Rutland and W. A. Scott (Dallas Morning News, 1887).
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  1890  
  Data from the August, 1890 edition of Poor's Directory of Railway Officials:  
 
     
 
     
 

Directors: H. J. Allen, W. G. Wadley, W. C. Brown, F. M. Duncan, Queen City; W. A. Scott, Ed. Sheets, J. D. Johnson, Atlanta; Officers: P. R. Scott, Pres.; Ed. Rand, Treas. & Gen. Man., Atlanta; W. D. Wadley, Supt., Queen City.

Projected from Queen City to the Arkansas and Louisiana State Line; 16 miles; with branch from Atlanta to Queen City.  Track laid, 8 miles; gauge, 3 ft.; rail, 35 lbs. per yard.  Chartered in March, 1887, and bought ½ interest in the Queen City Lumber Co.’s road, which was chartered as the Queen City, Spring Bank and Linden R.R.

The road is now being operated under a 3-years’ lease by Ed. Rand & Co., who extends the road into the timber lands as the business demands.  Locomotive engines, 2; freight cars, 38.

Financial statement – Capital stock (authorized, $200,000), $38,000; other liabilities, $42,000 – total, $80,000;  being cost of road and equipment to date.  Annual meeting, second Tuesday in March.  Directors: H. J. Allen, W. G. Wadley, W. C. Brown, F. M. Duncan, Queen City, Tex.; W. A. Scott, Ed. Sheets, J. D. Jonson, Atlanta, Tex.  Officers: P. R. Scott, Pres.; Ed. Rand, Treas. & Gen. Man., Atlanta, Tex.; W. G. Wadley, Supt., Queen City, Tex. Principal Office, Atlanta, Tex.

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
     
  1895 - 1897  
 

According to the Interstate Commerce Commission's Tenth Annual Report for 1896, the road "ceased operation in 1895." However, the ICC continued to list the company and its 16 miles in its statistical tables until 1900, with no mention of an earlier abandonment. The road certainly ceased to exist by the time the Texas, Arkansas & Louisiana Railway chartered its company 1897 and rebuilt the track that year between Atlanta, Queen City, and Bloomburg (ICC, 1896).

  
     
     
   
  Bibliography and Further Reading  
     
  Dallas Morning News. 1898. "Tramway Company Chartered", March 10, 1887.  
     
  Interstate Commerce Commission. 1896. Tenth Annual Report, Statistics of Railways in the United States for the Year Ending June 30, 1895. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Govt. Printing Office, December 1, 1896.  
     
  Poor, Henry V. and H.W. Poor. 1890. Poor's Directory of Railway Officials. New York: Poor's Railroad Manual, August, 1890.  
     
  Rand McNally and Company. 1901. Rand, McNally & Co.'s Indexed Atlas of the World. Texas sheet. Chicago: Rand, McNally & Co.  
     
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Text and images were digitized and proofread from the original source documents by Murry Hammond. Contact Murry for all corrections and contributions of new material.