Lyon Lumber Company 2-6-2 "Prairie" Locomotives in the USA

Class 1 (Locobase 14281)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University, Volume 52, p. 294+. See also "History of Pasco County: Odessa", presented at [] . Works number was 43576 in June 1916 and 45365 in March 1917.

The Lyon Lumber Company was formed in Odessa, Fla in 1909 to run a saw mill. Sometime after it bought this small wood-burning logging Prairie, the company was renamed Lyon Pine Lumber Company. According to the history of Odessa, the 1 arrived at an insalubrious time in Odessa's history: "In 1917-18, Odessa was a rough town with little law and order. Moonshine and narcotics were easy to come by. There were nightly knife fights, and gun fights at least once a week. Many of the mill workers were escaped convicts from North Florida and Georgia. Eighteen men were killed in one two year period. One of these was investigated by the law. The center of all activity, including many of the fights, was the commissary."

After the Lyon Pine Mill burned down in 1925, lumber processing was finished in Odessa. Lyon sold both engines to locomotive rebuilder/reseller Georgia Car & Locomotive. GC&L sold them to T T Scott of Kenansville, Fla in October 1928. T T Scott sold both locomotives out of the state to the Henderson-Waits Lumber Company of Warsaw, Ga ,as their #7 and #11. Sometime later HWLC sold the 7 to GC&L in 1938, which passed it along to Saint Joe Lumber & Export, of Port St Joe, Fla.. Apparently, the 11 had a more direct route to Saint Joe Lumber.

After its retirement, the 11 went on display at Port Saint Joe.