Oakhurst Lumber Company 2-8-2 "Mikado" Locomotives in the USA

Class 16 (Locobase 15468)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University, Vol 73, pp. 325. See the Texas Forestry Museum's Sawmill Database entry at [] and Robert Wooster, "OAKHURST, TX," Handbook of Texas Online ([]), accessed July 19, 2013. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.. Works number was 57704 in March 1924.

When Texas Long Leaf Lumber bought out the Palmetto Lumber Company, it renamed the operation after the PLC's headquarters town of Oakhurst, Texas. The sawmill at Oakhurst had originally been founded by Columbia Lumber Company at the turn of the century. Like many sawmill towns, Oakhurst had its company-run commissary, a drugstore, and a community center and at its lumber-era peak was home to 600 residents.

OLC ordered a medium-sized logging Mikado that conformed to the ICC regulations for such engines and, say the specifications, had the "extra heavy" frame necessary to cope with "rough track". Its cylinders were served steam by their 8" (203 mm) piston valves.

After the Oakhurst mill closed in 1930 and operations moved elsewhere, the TLLC sold the 16 to nearby Frost Lumber, which set it to work on their Nacogdoches & Southeastern.