Nortac Manufacturing Co.
Standard gauge, 25-lb rail Headquarters: Purvis, MS Mill Location: 1st mill- Nortac, MS (Pearl River County) 2nd mill- Barth, MS (Pearl River County) Mill Capacity: 25,000 ft/day in 1910 Years of Operation: 1917-1927 Miles Operated: 6 miles Locomotives Owned: |
Equipment:
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History by Gil Hoffman: On January 4, 1917, the
Jordan-Spottswood Lumber Company, a partnership composed of James Hand, F.
H. Jordan and C. L. Spottswood, all of Purvis, Lamar County, purchased 4,000
acres of timber from the Blodgett holdings near Poplarville, Pearl River
County. They then built a sawmill with a cutting capacity of 25,000 feet per
day on the New Orleans & Northeastern Railroad, at Nortac, in Pearl
River County.Other plant facilities were a planing mill and dry kilns. The name “Nortac” came from the backwards spelling of
Cattron, one of the owners of the mill site. In April 1917, Fred Jordan
bowed out and the Jordan-Spottswood Lumber Company was succeeded by a new
company. To operate the mill the Nortac mill, the Nortac Manufacturing
Company was incorporated at Purvis on June 7, 1917, by D. P. Kennedy, C. L.
Spottswood and J. W. Woodward. Kennedy and Spottswood were sons-in-law of
James Hand. These men operated the plant on a contract basis for James Hand. On August 1, 1919 the
sawmill, logging equipment and 3,120 acres of timber were sold to Kennedy
and Spottswood for $225,000. The sawmill contained a timber sizer. The mill cut out in 1922
at which time the company leased the mill of the Southern Lumber &
Timber Company at Orvisburg. Thanks to a depression in the lumber market the
mill lost money. In the early part of 1924, due to unreasonable demands by
Ran Batson (owner of the mill), the lease was broken and the Orvisburg mill
returned to its owner. In the spring of 1924 the company bought a block of timber southeast of Poplarville from the defunct Poplarville Saw Mill Company and established a new mill just north of Barth on the Mississippi Southern Railroad. This mill was run by C. L. Spottswood and Horace Shepard and also had a logging railroad. The Barth operation lasted until April 1927 when it and much of its timber was wiped out by a tornado. |
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ROSTER by Gil Hoffman:
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For more information contact Tony Howe at howe6818@bellsouth.net or David S. Price at dsprice46@bellsouth.net