Lumber company in BS&C territory in 1910
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Mon Oct 5 16:46:36 EDT 2009
C.L. Ritter, who was W.M. Ritter's cousin, had the milll at Gordon which was across the Tug River from the mouth of Clear Fork in McDowell County. This was located between Roderfield and Wilmore. To add to the confusion, C.L. Ritter established the community of Ritter on the south side of the Tug Fork at the mouth of the Clear Fork. Gordon siding was located opposite Ritter on the north side of the Tug Fork.
W.M. Ritter established one of his saw mills at Ritter on the Dry Fork which empties into the Tug Fork at Iaeger. However Ritter on the Dry Fork could not have a post office named Ritter, because C.L. Ritter already had one named Ritter at the mouth of the Clear Fork. So the post office at Ritter on the Dry Fork was named Avondale, even though everyone called the location Ritter.
C.L. Ritter bought the 40,000 acres the Flat Top Land Association had in Wyoming/Boone/Raleigh County that was not contiguous with their other propertties, which is why he probably reopened the Sandy Huff mill.
Mary Bowman wrote in her book on Wyoming County, "From 1922 to 1927, The C.L. Ritter Lumber Company operated a band mill at Sandy Huff to manufacture lumber from timber cut over the same 5,000 acres which R.E. Wood removed timber from 1898 to 1908, employing 100 to 150 men. Two-thirds of them worked at the mill and in the yards, the remainder in the woods. Logs were transported across the mountain from Huffs Creek in Wyoming County with a 35-ton Shay Locomotive and a 20-ton Climax locomotive on steel rails . Total cut at this set, 60,000,000 feet." R.E. Wood had cut nearly 72,000,000 feet from the same property from 1898 through 1908.
C.L. Ritter is probably remembered more for his hardware sales in WV, rather than for his lumber business. C.L. Ritter also had extensive lumbering in Virginia.
There was aslo a large saw mill at Ada on the East River run by W.M. Ritter (I think). I would have to look up which Ritter operated which mill.
One of the confusing things are the multiple rivers with the same names in the same county as well as different counties. As an example the Greenbrier Coal and Coke Co on North Fork Branch was named after the Greenbrier Branch (creek) that emptied into the North Fork of Elkhorn Creek. However there is a Greenbrier Branch that runs into Panther Creek that was more famous for timbering.
I won't tell you how many times I have been confused about where some place was or which river or creek was actually being talked about.
Alex Schust
----- Original Message -----
From: NW Mailing List
To: NW Mailing List
Sent: Monday, October 05, 2009 3:20 PM
Subject: Re: Lumber company in BS&C territory in 1910
Alex,
Thanks for the additional info, but I need some clarification. In order to familiarize myself with somewhat unfamiliar territory I have tried to follow your descriptions on a map, but I have trouble understanding how the C. L. Ritter Lumber Co. mill at Gordon on the Clear Fork that flows south into the Guyandotte River upstream of Bailey Reservoir relates to a different Clear Fork a lot farther south which flows north into Tug Fork between Roderfield and Wilmore. It was this latter Clear Fork which was followed by the N&W Clear Fork Branch.
Incidentally, in a online biography of C. L. Ritter it states that he relocated from Pennsylvania, "...and in 1889 came to West Virginia and entered the lumber business at Oakvale on East River." So, it looks as though the N&W probably got his first business.
Gordon Hamilton
----- Original Message -----
From: NW Mailing List
To: NW Mailing List
Sent: Monday, October 05, 2009 9:07 AM
Subject: Re: Lumber company in BS&C territory in 1910
The R.E. Wood Lumber Co had 27 miles of wooden track from Wyoming County down Buffalo Creek and then down to Sandy Huff where the the N&W connection was made. My new book, "Billion Dollar Coalfield", will have a picture of Climax on wooden rails on that particular railroad. C. L. Ritter took over that property in the 1920s and kept the mill going at Sandy Huff through the 1920s. C.L. Ritter also had the first mill at Gordon and timbered along the Cleak Fork. He probably had a lumber railroad running down the Clear Fork which formed the basis of George L Carter's West Virgina Southwestern Railway that eventually became the Clear Fork Branch.
Alex Schust
----- Original Message -----
From: NW Mailing List
To: 3N&W Mailing List
Sent: Sunday, October 04, 2009 10:06 PM
Subject: Lumber company in BS&C territory in 1910
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
March 16, 1910
STEEL RAILS
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Replacing Wooden Ones on Track of Lumber Company
The C. L. Ritter Lumber Company, Inc., is rushing work on its Virginia plant and is replacing as fast as possible all the wooden track which it inherited from the Yellow Poplar Lumber Company, which it recently bought out. The old company had Fifty-four miles of wooden rails and it is the intention of the new company to replace this track as rapidly as circumstances demand with steel rails. The company will also go down Dismal about seventeen miles to reach a large tract of timber. The company's offices are at Huntington, W. Va., while its working plant is now located at Whitewood, Va. The C. L. Ritter Lumber Company, the Rockcastle Lumber Company and the Tug River Lumber Company have joint offices in Huntington.
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[I have seen old pictures of wooden track lumber railroads, but I never had any idea that there would be 54 miles of such track in one operation. The attached picture of a C. L. Ritter Climax locomotive at Whitewood is from the collection of C. T. Stoner, and is presented here by courtesy of climaxlocomotives.com. It appears to be on wooden rails. Whitewood is in Buchanan County, Virginia, on Dismal Creek in an area that was remote in 1910, so it would be interesting to know how the lumber from that plant got to market. According to Blackstock and Wilson's article in the July/August issue of The Arrow, W. M. Ritter's Big Sandy and Cumberland narrow gauge railroad reached Matney on Slate Creek in 1910, and Matney would be only three to four miles north of the C. L. Ritter line down Dismal Creek. Could there have been a connection over the divide between Dismal and Slate creeks for C. L. Ritter lumber to go out on the BS&C? Incidentally, the C. L. Ritter Lumber Co. is still in existence in Huntington according to the websites such as www.manta.com. ]
Gordon Hamilton
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