Moscow, Camden & San Augustine Railroad
Camden, Polk County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Texas' shortest (and one of its oldest) "mixed"-train railroads. Has passenger and freight cars pulled by a single engine on a 7-mile system, 5 days a week. Chartered 1898 by lumberman W. T. Carter to connect sawmill town of Camden with Texas & New Orleans Railway at Moscow. "Panama No. 201," now retired to Camden with other old steam engines, was used in building the Panama Canal in 1914. It was last locomotive in service here, 1965. Passenger coach with original rattan seats began its career 1898 on Long Island Railroad.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Chartered in 1898 by lumberman W. T. Carter, the Moscow, Camden & San Augustine Railroad linked the sawmill town of Camden to the main line at Moscow along just seven miles of track. It became Texas's shortest mixed-train railroad, carrying both passengers and freight behind a single engine. One of its retired engines, "Panama No. 201," had helped build the Panama Canal in 1914 before serving here.
Why it matters
This tiny "mixed" line captures the world of the East Texas lumber boom, when short railroads tied isolated sawmill towns into the national economy.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · W. T. Carter
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Town of Corrigan
Corrigan, TX
Tucked in the piney woods of East Texas, Corrigan began about 1860 when settler James B. Hendry donated land for a townsite. The coming of the Texas & New Orleans Railroad in the early 1880s sparked a timber boom, and the town — named for railroad official Pat Corrigan — soon boasted a hotel, stores, a blacksmith shop, and even a ten-pin bowling alley. Lumber, ranching, and farming still anchor the local economy.
Abbott Springs Meadows Cemetery
Corrigan, TX
This pioneer graveyard served the vanished community of Asia, which grew up along Paces Creek after Samuel Crissman received a land headright in 1835. Settlers like the Meadows, Snell, and Standley families made it home, and James Standley's blacksmith and cabinet shops formed its nucleus. When the Trinity and Sabine Railway and a Houston sawmill arrived in the mid-1880s, loggers and mill workers poured in — until the timber was cut out before 1910 and the town faded away. Descendants restored the overgrown burial ground in the 1990s.
Enloe Mill
Colmesneil, TX
Benjamin Enloe, an 1837 settler, bought this Tyler County land in 1849 and built a water-powered mill on Billums Creek where the inflow of Belts Creek turned the wheel. Three generations of Enloes ground cornmeal, sawed lumber, and ginned cotton for settlers across a wide region — it even supplied the boards for Woodville's first frame courthouse in 1852. Traffic to the mill wore in one of the area's main roads, later Boone's Ferry Road, tying the settlement to the Old Spanish Trail.
Emporia
Diboll, TX
In 1893 the Emporia Lumber Company's owners S.F. Carter and M.T. Jones bought more than 5,000 acres in south Angelina County and built a company town around a sawmill, complete with a railroad spur, logging camps, company houses, schools, churches, stores, and a cemetery. When the mill burned in 1906 it was never rebuilt, yet residents lingered even as the company folded. In time the town was swallowed by the growing city of Diboll.