Dates: 1906-1922.

History:

The town of Leland, Washington County, Mississippi, was formed in February of 1885, shortly after the arrival of the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad. The Darnell-Love Lumber Company began business near Leland in 1902, and it was the principal local industry for around twenty years. The company was called Darlove colloquially, and the town of Darlove, located about eight miles south of Leland, was named for the Darnell-Love Lumber Company. The company built a sawmill in present-day Darlove, and it organized the Leland Southwestern Railroad Company. Under a contract with the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad, a subsidiary of the Illinois Central Railroad Company, the Leland Southwestern Railroad Company ran a spur from the main Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad track in Leland, through Tribbett, Bourbon, and Darlove. The spur was called the Black Dog branch line of the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad, and a Black Dog railway station was built at Darlove.

The nine-and-a-quarter-mile Black Dog track conveyed lumber from the abundant Black Creek area of Washington County to Leland and other markets. The Darnell-Love Lumber Company employed about one hundred fifty people to process the twelve million board feet of lumber it produced annually. The company was the largest hardwood lumber plant in Mississippi in 1917. The Darnell-Love Lumber Company and the Leland Southwestern Railroad Company were acquired by the Turner-Farber-Love Company of Leland in 1922. The new company was capitalized at $1,200,000. After additional purchases, the Turner-Farber-Love Company became one of the largest hardwood-lumber-producing companies in the world in 1923.

The Leland Southwestern Railroad Company made regular payments to the Illinois Central Railroad Company for the construction and lease of track. However, by December of 1922, the Leland Southwestern Railroad Company was no longer in operation, and the Mississippi Valley Corporation was credited for the amount of salvage recovered from removing the track and disposing of the right-of-way. This credit, however, only partially repaid the Mississippi Valley Corporation for advances toward the original cost of the railroad. The final losses for the Leland Southwestern Railroad Company were $53, 506.03.

Scope and Content:

The records of the Leland Southwestern Railroad Company consist of one accounting ledger and one accounting journal. The ledger and journal are bound and paginated, and they appear to be part of a series. The ledger has a roman numeral seven written on its first page, and the journal has a roman numeral eight written on its first page. The majority of the entries in each volume are from 1906 through 1909, but the later entries are more occasional.

The indexed accounting ledger records expenses, amounts paid to stockholders, and funds received from the Illinois Central Railroad Company. The names of investors are listed, and their shares of stock, valued at one hundred dollars each, totaled $100,000 in 1909. Page headings usually indicate the dates covered, or at least the starting date for page tallies. The remainder of the journal is blank from page twenty-seven on.

The accounting journal dates from August 31, 1906, through December of 1922. It records expenses and payments to other railroads. Most of the entries are monthly, although some months were skipped. Each page of the journal usually has a heading indicating the type of expense recorded, such as payments to the Illinois Central Railroad Company. The majority of the journal is blank.

 

Series Identification:

Series 1: Ledger. 1906-1922. 1 item.

Series 2: Journal. 1906-1922. 1 item.