SOUTHWEST FOREST INDUSTRIES
Log Car No. 511 |
Listen Here |
Log cars carried logs from the forests to the sawmill, where they were cut into finished lumber for the construction industry. Lumberjacks felled the trees, removed the branches, cut the logs to 40-foot lengths, and loaded them onto the cars. Trains of these cars would bring a steady supply of logs to the mill.
This car was built between 1917 and 1920, probably for the Flagstaff Lumber Company which after successive ownerships became Southwest Forest Industries.
After it was no longer needed around 1964, this car remained on display at the company sawmill in Flagstaff for thirty years. The city of Flagstaff purchased it in 1994 and donated it to the museum in 1999. In 2011, Southwest Forest Products of Phoenix donated a load of logs to complete the display.
This 41-foot, all-steel car was built by the Bettendorf Company of Bettendorf, Iowa. It probably served the Flagstaff Lumber Company in its early years, bringing logs to the Flagstaff sawmill. The Flagstaff Lumber Company was purchased by the Cady Lumber Company in 1924.
The Cady Lumber Company originated in McNary, Louisiana. When their supply of timber dwindled in 1922, they purchased the defunct Apache Lumber Company in Cooley, Arizona, and the Flagstaff Lumber Company in Flagstaff. They renamed the town of Cooley to McNary, and moved the company there from Louisiana. Besides this car being used in the Flagstaff operation, it may also have been used at McNary.
In 1935 the company was renamed Southwest Lumber Mills, then Southwest Forest Industries in 1960. Trucks began hauling most of the logs, and railroad operations ended around 1964. Three log cars, including this one, escaped a fire at the Flagstaff mill and were left on the property.
When Southwest Forest Industries was bought by Stone Container Corporation in 1987, locomotive No. 25 and the three log cars remained on display at company headquarters until they were purchased by the city of Flagstaff in 1994. One car was placed on display near the Flagstaff depot, one was put on display at the Pioneer Museum north of Flagstaff, and the third was donated to the Arizona Railway Museum in 1999.
To obtain the car, the museum sent its ATSF bulkhead flatcar No. 330219 to Flagstaff, the log car was loaded on it, and the BNSF and UP railroads moved the flatcar and its load back to the museum at no cost. The log car was unloaded from the flatcar in 2006, and eventually had a load of logs added to it in 2011.