Shay Locomotive No. 2005
Nacogdoches, Nacogdoches County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Vertical-piston drive and direct-gear design was patented, 1880, by Ephraim Shay. This 36-ton engine was built by Lima Locomotive and Machine Co., 1907, for Behring Co. of Texas, and soon purchased by W. T. Carter and Bro. Lumber Co. Carter used it first on tram roads from forest to mills at Manning and Camden, and later on the company-owned Moscow, Camden & San Augustine Railroad. In early 1920s, it was parked on a siding at Camden, where it remained until 1970, when it was brought here. Attached log car was used during same period by Angelina County Lumber Co. (1973)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Ephraim Shay's 1880 design, with its vertical pistons and direct gearing, gave loggers a locomotive that could crawl over the rough, twisting tram roads of the timber woods where ordinary engines failed. This 36-ton example, built by Lima in 1907, hauled logs for Texas lumber companies from forest to mill and later ran on the company-owned Moscow, Camden & San Augustine Railroad. After decades parked on a Camden siding, it was rescued in 1970 and preserved with a log car of the same era.
Why it matters
The geared Shay locomotive made industrial logging possible on steep, uneven ground, and this survivor preserves the machinery that drove the East Texas timber economy.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Ephraim Shay
- · W. T. Carter
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
In Memory of Thomas F. McKinney
Nacogdoches, TX
Thomas F. McKinney (1801-1873) was a leading merchant and financier in the era of the Texas Republic. As senior partner of McKinney & Williams, whose store stood on this Nacogdoches site in the 1820s, he built the first wharf at Galveston and served as a financial advisor to the young Republic of Texas. His commercial and banking ventures helped underwrite Texas independence and early statehood.
City of Appleby
Nacogdoches, TX
Appleby began in 1840 when pioneers like a settler named Herran built a log hut and tar kiln in the piney woods northeast of Nacogdoches. The community's fortunes shifted when the Houston East and West Texas Railway arrived in 1889, pulling the town center north to the tracks and naming it for the railway's auditor, James Appleby. At its height it boasted churches, cotton gins, general stores, a bank, and a depot, thriving as a distribution point for lumber and cotton before larger towns eclipsed it.
Angelina & Neches River Railroad
Lufkin, TX
Chartered in 1900 and based in the sawmill town of Keltys, the Angelina and Neches River Railroad began as a humble short line hauling logs from the East Texas woods to the mills of the Angelina County Lumber Company. Its lumber-baron founders were part of a wider trend of timbermen turning to railroading, and the line grew from ten miles of narrow-gauge track and two wood-burning engines into a standard-gauge carrier reaching neighboring counties. With Southland Paper Mills' founding in 1938, it hauled pulpwood and shipped out newsprint.
Equipment Typical of Early Texas Logging
Lufkin, TX
This slip-tongue, high-wheel cart, built in 1950 for the lumber firm W.T. Carter & Brother, was among the last of its kind, drawn by oxen or mules to skid logs from the forest to the railroad. Replaced by tractor-powered equipment just a year later, it stands as a relic of the labor-intensive methods that defined early East Texas logging. Preserved and marked in 1972, it recalls the industry that shaped the Piney Woods economy.