Railroading on Top of Lake View Mountain

Written by the late Malcom Williams, former president of Cowan Railroad Museum.

On February 10, 1986 I conducted an interview with Mr. Pearson Maynard Smith about a little known railroad operation in Franklin County which was the Davidson, Hicks and Greene Lumber Company Railroad from Cowan to the top of Lakeview Mountain, extending approximately 21 ½ miles of mainline and in addition, at least 25 miles of branch line tracks were laid out on the ridges to and beyond the Walls of Jerico and to many cableway log skidder sets, also to the seven inclines that brought logs up from the coves to be loaded on the trains for movement down the mountain to the sawmills.

The railroad used standard gauge equipment of all gear driven locomotives, Shay’s, Climax, and Heister’s to perform the work on the 4 ½ to 5 percent grades. 9

Source: Cowan Railroad Museum, Coulson Collection

The D. H. & G. R.R. was started in 1916 when the lumber company came from Overton and Fentress Counties in East Tennessee. In 1909 W.V. Davidson, president of the D.H. & G. Co., started buying tracts of virgin timber land in the Cumberland Mountain area south and east of Cowan. By 1916 the total acreage purchased had reached more than 52,000 acres. Additional acreage was purchased over the years until by 1927 the total acreage was about 82,000 acres.

The base of the operation started at Cowan where they had three sawmills to cut the timber for shipment to other parts of the country over the N.C. & St. L Railroad.

The D. H. & G. Railroad extended from Cowan six miles up to the top of Lakeview Mountain to where their first large base camp, named Hicks, was located. Here they built a school, a general store and camp houses for the workers. Also a blacksmith shop for the maintenance and repair of the steam locomotives, steam skidders and other equipment used in the logging operation.

After clearing out the lumber in the vicinity of Hicks, they started moving out over the mountain toward Cold Springs. Here they built a hotel and had small camps set up about three miles apart, for the crews handling the mules to clear roads and snaking some of the logs into the base camp. Some of the camps were named Cold Springs, Coon Town, Sal City, Jerico and Lakeview. Lakeview also had a hotel in addition to the houses for the workers. A lake was built to furnish water for the locomotives and log skidders. Lakeview was also a point where coal and supplies were taken on the equipment.

The top of the mountain is mostly flat, in varying widths, practically the entire length of the mountain, with elevations varying from 1,050 to 2,000 feet.

There was much timber removed from the several hundred feet deep coves to the top of the mountain by use of inclines and overhead skidders. By the end of the operation there had been logged, sawed and shipped 225,000,000 board feet of southern hardwood, including 60,000,000 club-turned hickory spokes for Ford “tin lizzies” before the advent of wire and steel flanged wheels for automobiles.

There was a total of seven inclines leading from the top of the mountain to the bottom of the coves to bring logs up for loading on rail cars to be moved by locomotives to the sawmills in Cowan.

A small camp, known as Jerico, located in Jackson County, about one mile over the Alabama line, where a very unusual and ingenious means of operation at the No. 7 incline was used to remove logs from the bottom of the Walls of Jerico. This was explained in another interview with Pearson Maynard Smith on December 5, 1988, as we stood at the top of the mountain overlooking the rugged terrain.

Quote: “Looking north ¾ miles down the incline and about ½ mile across the bottom, there is a decline on the other side extending up some 2,000 feet to a flat bench of the mountain where a double-drum wire cable arrangement operated without power, as the weight of the loaded car of logs descending the decline pulled an empty car up to the bench yard. A Fordson Tractor, with flanged wheels, took it up into Turkey Creek about four miles to get it above the top of the Walls of Jerico. The decline track was single except for a short span at the half-way point where a double span of tracks, with proper spring switches, permitted the descending loaded car and the ascending empty car to meet and pass. Then we hit the bottom again and we came down made a back switch and got the timber to that side. The loaded car was then moved to the top of the incline where the log loader picked the logs up and placed them on the rail cars for movement to the sawmills in Cowan.

“Also from this point we can see Pitcher Ridge and over there is Hurricane. Here on top of this ridge is Little Mountain at the back side of Keith Springs. We are standing in Alabama now - that side is in Tennessee. I helped build this operation in 1924. I am now 80 years old and I am reviewing this with Malcolm Williams to have record of the Davidson, Hicks and Greene Lumber Company Railroad operation in this community.” End of quote.

The entire lumber operation was completed in 1927. Many of the original families that came from East Tennessee with the Davidson, Hicks and Greene Lumber Company remained in the area and their descendants still reside here. 11

The D. H. & G. Co. Sawmills in Cowan turned 60 million wooden spokes for the Ford Motor Company between 1909 and 1925.

It was in 1925, with the end of the Cowan sawmill operation in sight, that the officials of the D. H. & G. Co. took samples of the limestone and clay deposits in the vicinity of the sawmill area, had them tested, and found them to be most favorable, both to quality and quantity, for the making of high grade cement. In 1926 the Cumberland Portland Cement Company was organized with the officers of D. H. & G Company filling similar positions with the cement corporation.

The D. H. & G. Company deeds to the Cumberland Company 1,140 acres of land from the northwest corner of the 52,000 acre tract, containing some 240 acres of clay fields and plant-side land and about 900 acres of foot-of-mountain limestone acreage. The Lumber Company also deeded a group of houses and lots inside the corporate limits of Cowan that would be rented for their employees.

The Plant produced its first cement in May of 1927.

The Portland Cement Company was sold to the Marquette Cement Co. in 1947 and remained in operation until 1980 when the operation was closed down.