Wausau Southern Lumber Company 2-6-0 "Mogul" Locomotives in the USA

Class 2 (Locobase 14975)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University Volume 65, p. 326. See also [] . Works number was 53855 in October 1920.

Wausau is normally associated with Wisconsin, but the Southern referred to this lumber line's location in Jones County, Mississippi. Indeed, according to SouthBear's History of Laurel, Mississippi (Chapter 3), it was one of the four Northern-owned lumber companies that operated sawmills in Laurel. This typical logging Mogul supported the WSLC's timber operations.

Although they are described as "enlightened" (a view endorsed by other Laurel historians), the Jones County lumber companies didn't always practice sustainable silvicuture: "During the Depression, it became painfully apparent that the landscape of Jones County had been completely denuded by the lumber industry. Miles upon miles of the county were said to resemble a barren moonscape, pockmarked with the stumps of the once-towering pines."

At that point, the 2 found new employment with the Peavy Moore Lumber Company in Texas, which put it to work on the Sabine & Neches Valley as their 126. (The S&NV opened in 1919 and ran 13 miles west from Ruliff to Gist.)

Depressing music indeed, but there's an upbeat coda: "Conservation and reforestation efforts came with F.D. Roosevelt's Work Projects Administration. In conjunction with state and local authorities, most notably the Mississippi Forestry Commission, thousands of acres of denuded forests began to be replaced with seedlings .... The effort paid off, for today forestry-related industries, including Masonite, remain an important part of the Laurel economic base."