{"id":4299,"date":"2025-06-22T10:58:32","date_gmt":"2025-06-22T15:58:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/?p=4299"},"modified":"2025-06-22T10:58:32","modified_gmt":"2025-06-22T15:58:32","slug":"louisiana-cypress-lumber-co-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/2025\/06\/22\/louisiana-cypress-lumber-co-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Louisiana Cypress Lumber Co. #1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Louisiana Cypress Lumber Company was a fairly extensive operation in the first half of the 20th century.\u00a0 They had a\u00a0store and mill complex located on U.S. Highway 51 just south of Ponchatoula, Louisiana.  The company harvested a huge amount of cypress over the years, transporting the logs over an unusual railroad that was largely built over swamps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Steam locomotive #1 was the company&#8217;s &#8220;mainline&#8221; power used for hauling the log trains from the swamps to the mill.  In March of 1948 C.W. Witbeck recorded this view of the locomotive at rest at the mill.  She is a standard gauge 2-6-2 &#8220;Prairie&#8221; built in April of 1921 by H.K. Porter.  She&#8217;s powered by 12&#8243;x16&#8243; cylinders using 170 psi steam and has 9,250 lbs. of tractive effort.  She&#8217;s a coal burner and has 37&#8243; drivers.  I was fortunate to see this little steamer back in the early 70s.  I had photographed the mill&#8217;s #3 which was on display out by the highway.  Then driving down the gravel road alongside the mill, I spotted a whistle poking up from behind (I believe) lumber stacks.  I stopped and walked around and there she was!  I did take several photos, but they were unfortunately lost in a flood many years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Louisiana-Cypress-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"900\" height=\"554\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Louisiana-Cypress-1.jpg\" alt=\"Louisiana Cypress Steam Locomotive #1\" class=\"wp-image-4297\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Louisiana-Cypress-1.jpg 900w, https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Louisiana-Cypress-1-300x185.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Louisiana-Cypress-1-768x473.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Louisiana-Cypress-1-487x300.jpg 487w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the last information I was able to find, she was last owned by Samuel Warren Frye of Griffin, Georgia, and was on display at the Roosevelt Railroad Museum.  Ralph Hawkins has several more photographs of the little Prairie on his website <a href=\"https:\/\/hawkinsrails.net\/industrials\/lclc\/lclc.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>HawkinsRails<\/strong><\/a>.  Be sure to scroll all the way down to see the #1 at work.  <em>Herron Rail Services<\/em> produced a VHS tape years ago titled \u201cGlory Machines 5\u201d.  It has some nice footage of the #1 at work in the swamps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Photograph by C.W. Witbeck; Phil Kotheimer Collection<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Louisiana Cypress Lumber Company was a fairly extensive operation in the first half of the 20th century.\u00a0 They had a\u00a0store and mill complex located on U.S. Highway 51 just south of Ponchatoula, Louisiana. The company harvested a huge amount &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/2025\/06\/22\/louisiana-cypress-lumber-co-1\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photos-i-like","category-railfanning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4299"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4304,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4299\/revisions\/4304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}