Class 2 (Locobase 14711)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University, Volume 62, pp. 390+. Works number was 53266 in May 1920.

One of the typical Baldwin light logging Prairies built in the 19teens, the 2 first operated on the Sartin Lumber Company of Neshoba County, Mississippi. Like most tram road, the SLC used 30-35 lb/yard (15-17.5 kg/metre) rail on a route that included 4% ruling grades and 30-40% curves.

Sometime later, the 2 next worked on the W I Luke & Son holdings near Walnut Grove, Miss, before moving on to the Pearl River Valley Lumber Company.

Class 5 (Locobase 13823)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University, Volume 39, p. 64. See also Eva Mae May, "Missippi's Largest Lumber Operation - Sumter Lumber Company - Electric Mills, MS" from Mississippi on Parade, 1930s, and Wallace O'Neal, "The Closing of the Sawmill at Electric Mills", both archived at [], last accessed 4 February 2012. Works number was 37160 in November 1911.

Sumter moved from its Sumter County, Alabama roots to its newly named Electric Mills, Mississippi location in 1912. The Kemper County town's name came from Sumter's erection of the first fully electrified sawmill in the US. Indeed, it was one of the largest shortleaf pine mills as well. May's account shows us the character of an enlightened company town of the early 20th Century:

"While Electric Mills is owned in its entirety by the company, it is an incorporated town and a complete unit in itself. The company has provided a Club House, a Playground for the children, a Community House, which is the social center of the town and which houses over three thousand volumes of standard literature and current fiction; all of the late magazines are available in the reading room. A picture show in which the latest pictures are shown, as well as a very large and complete commissary, Ice Cream Parlor, and Ice Manufacturing plant, and other facilities such as found in any modern town."

May goes on to describe the commissary, a facility that in many such towns was often notorious for its pricing policies. She says only that the commissary traded not only with employees but "...likewise enjoys a quite heavy trade from the surrounding territory."

Also characteristic were the education provisions: "Elementary schools for both white and colored are provided, as well as a Union Church."

One of the first facilities in the town was the "...George C. Hixon Memorial Hospital, a 52 bed hospital, with X-Ray room, Fracture Tables and all other equipment necessary for a complete modern institution of this kind." May reported that like the commissary and other Electric Mills institutions, the hospital served the region as well.

May closes with this positive assessment: " With these and many special facilities offered the employees, and the very liberal wage scale which has always been maintained by Sumter, they have practically no labor turnover. Many of the employees have been with Sumter for from fifteen to twenty-five years and there are a number scattered throughout the crews who have worked continuously from thirty to thirty-five years."

And finally, as befit the first all-electric mill, "All electricity being made from sawmill waste, and from electricity for home lighting being furnished to all employees, Electric Mills is often spoken of as the 'brightest town south of St. Louis.'"

Bright it might have been, but its future darkened quickly. By 1940, the forests near the mill had been cut-over to such an extent that not even trucking the logs to the mill was practical. The last operation, a planing mill, shut down in September 1941. Former employee Wallace O'Neal takes a philosophical view of this development: "If this mill had to close, it came at a good time. It was during the war, and on the coast-mostly Pascagoula and Mobile-things were booming at the ship yards. Most of the men were skilled at their work. They fit nicely into the ship yard work. Most of them located there very soon-many of them with better jobs than they had at the mill."

Mississippi Governor Paul Johnson abolished Electric Mills' charter in 1942, noting that the town had fewer than 100 inhabitants and was not functioning.