Don Hensley
The Argent Lumber Company was a Cypress
lumber operation with a mill at Hardeville, SC. This mill was put
in operation in September of 1916 with a three foot gauge logging line
built north 7 miles towards Tillman, SC. By 1938 this mainline had
turned west near Tillman towards the swamps bordering the Savanah
River. Another mainline in 1938 turned east a few miles north of
Hardeeville where it crossed the ACL above grade over extensive
trestling giving this flat land swamp logger a mountain grade division
that had to be double headed. This line had a branch towards Jasper, SC
and another branch south of Switzerland, SC where the line crossed the
Seaboard at grade to extensive logging areas east of the Seaboard. The
year was a turning point for Argent as the timber was running out on
its north and east mainlines. They were already at work on a new
mainline that would cross the Savanah River with a center draw bridge
to reach extensive cypress swamps on the west side of the river in
Georgia. These new lands would give the Argent Lumber Co. life
until abandonment 20 years later in 1959.
While William Monypeny was on one of his many
railfan vacations in December of 1938 he probally accidently stumbled
onto this operation while railfanning the nearby Southern Ry operations
at Tillman, SC, as he mistakenly gives that town for the location of
these negatives that he took with his Kodak 3A postcard film camera.
You will notice that the number 6 is leading the number 2 for double
heading over the ACL overpass, both have been filled with scrap wood in
the tenders and are getting ready to hook onto their train of empty log
cars for the run east toward Switzerland.
