Mississippi Rails

As the Pearl & Leaf Rivers Railroad was expanded, the new goal to reach Natchez was chosen and the railroad was renamed the Mississippi Central on February 13, 1904.

In 1908 the much publicized first through passenger train was pulled from Hattiesburg to Natchez by engineer A. S. Trigg.

The J. J. Newman Lumber Company, owner of the Mississippi Central, was huge. By 1905 its timber holdings had reached 400,000 acres and the company estimated its total capital investment at $26,000,000. Another huge sawmill was built at Bude in 1912, and called the Homochitto Lumber Co. The Mississippi Central tied these mills together, provided a backbone to many logging branches that supplied these mills, and gave ready and profitable choices of outlets for finished lumber. J. J. Newman, Homochitto, and the Mississippi Central were part of the holdings of the United States Lumber Company, whose president and prime-mover was Fenwick Peck.

In 1921, the Mississippi Central adopted a new slogan, “The Natchez Route,” and for several exciting years did a brisk through-freight business between Natchez and the port city of Mobile utilizing leased trackage between Hattiesburg and Beaumont and trackage rights over the Gulf, Mobile & Northern to Mobile. Five new mikado locomotives were purchased new in 1921 to handle the increased business. The 1920's proved to be the pinnacle of profit and tonnage for the Mississippi Central.

Mississippi Central also operated two additional branches out of Hattiesburg. Construction started on what was called the “Pascagoula Extension” in 1906. It was planned to complete this line to Pascagoula to give the company an outlet to the Gulf. For various reasons, the line was never completed more than 14 miles to a point called “Pines.” Its primary function was to tap Newman timber lands east of the G&SI, and many miles of logging spurs were built by the lumber company eastward off of it. It also became the basis of Mississippi Central’s access to Camp Shelby during World War I. The line was removed in 1921, but was quickly relaid in 1941 to serve Camp Shelby, only to be removed again after World War II.

The second branch was even more short-lived. On November 23, 1921, MSC leased a 12-mile branch extending east from Hattiesburg to a point known as Tallahala in Perry County. This line had been built as the logging railroad of the Tallahala Lumber Co. in 1917 and logs were hauled by the G&SI to Tallahala’s mill at Ora, near Collins. In 1921, Major-Sowers Saw Mill Co. bought the logging railroad and timber land, and built a large sawmill at Tallahala. After this mill cut out in January 1929, the line was quickly abandoned.

Mississippi Central survived the closing of the big mills in the early 1930's. Location of a $30-million paper mill on the MSC at Ferguson on the east side of the Pearl River in the mid-1960's spelled the end of Mississippi Central ownership. Heavy debts made further capital investment by the railroad extremely difficult. In 1965 an agreement was reached for the Illinois Central to purchase the Mississippi Central, and this became a fact on March 29, 1967. After several years of more or less business-as-usual operation, through traffic to Natchez was discontinued. Finally the eastern segment was abandoned between the paper mill at Ferguson and Hattiesburg. Rails were finally removed in the early 1990's, and a popular hiking and biking trail, the Longleaf Trace, now occupies the right-of-way between Hattiesburg and Prentiss.