Angelina & Neches River Railroad

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Angelina and Neches River Railroad. Now settle in, because this one starts small, real small, and grows into something worth talking about. We're in East Texas, late summer of 1900.

The Angelina and Neches River Railroad gets its charter in August of that year, headquartered in a sawmill town called Keltys. At the start, the whole operation is modest by any measure: ten miles of track and two wood-burning narrow-gauge steam locomotives. Two.

The kind of equipment that sounds like hard work just describing it. The job was simple enough in concept: move logs out of the East Texas woods and into the mills of the Angelina County Lumber Company. The four principal founding partners, Joseph H.

Kurth Senior, S. W. Henderson Senior, Eli Wiener, and Sam Wiener, were all officers in that same lumber company.

They were riding a wave, joining a growing trend of lumber company industrialists who branched out into the railroad business right around the turn of the twentieth century. These men knew timber, and they figured they ought to know the rails that carried it too. By 1906, the line had added two and a half miles of track, stretching its eastern terminus out to Alco, a logging camp owned by the lumber company.

And those two new locomotives that came along with the expansion? They weren't just extra muscle. They were part of converting the track itself, from narrow gauge to standard gauge.

That is the kind of investment that says you're not thinking about next season, you're thinking about the next era. And sure enough, by 1911 the line had extended all the way to Chireno, over in Nacogdoches County. Then comes 1938, and something significant.

Southland Paper Mills gets founded, and the marker tells us that happened largely due to assets of the Angelina and Neches River Railroad. With that, the railroad's whole purpose shifted and expanded. Now it was hauling in pulpwood and shipping out newsprint made from southern pine.

Logs in one form going one direction, paper coming out the other. East Texas timber, turned into the news of the world. In its first hundred years, this short line played a key role in the economic development of Lufkin and the communities strung along its route.

What started as ten miles of narrow track and two wood-burning locomotives became a thread woven through the whole economic fabric of the region. Not bad for a short line railroad out of a sawmill town.

What the marker says

Chartered in August 1900 and headquartered in the sawmill town of Keltys, the Angelina and Neches River (A&NR) Railroad began as a small short line railroad to move logs from the woods of East Texas to the mills of the Angelina County Lumber Company. Principal founding partners Joseph H. Kurth, Sr., S. W. Henderson, Sr., Eli Wiener and Sam Wiener, all officers in the Angelina County Lumber Company, joined the growing trend of lumber company industrialists who branched out into the railroad business about the turn of the 20th century. The A&NR began with ten miles of track and two wood-burning narrow-gauge steam locomotives. In 1906, the line added 2.54 miles of track, with its eastern terminus at Alco, a logging camp owned by the lumber company. Two new locomotives were purchased to accommodate the conversion of the track from narrow to standard gauge. By 1911, the line extended to Chireno in Nacogdoches County. With the founding of Southland Paper Mills in 1938, made possible largely due to assets of the A&NR, the railroad expanded to haul in pulpwood and ship out newsprint made from southern pine. In its first 100 years, the Angelina & Neches River's short line service played a key role in the economic development of Lufkin and other communities along the line. It continues as an important part of the history of the East Texas timber industry. (2000)