Angelina and Neches River Railroad, an East Texas short line railroad. (original) (raw)

They were an unlikely business partnership--a German immigrant, an Irish storekeeper, and two Jewish brothers.

But in 1900, Joseph Kurth, Simon W. Henderson, and Sam and Eli Wiener pooled their resources and created the Angelina and Neches River Railroad.

It wasn�t much of a railroad in the beginning--two wood-burning narrow-gauge locomotives and ten miles of track.

But in almost 110 years, the A&NR has become as much a part of East Texas as the pine trees that blanket the region.

The shortline�s service helped shape the success of Lufkin�s largest corporations--firms like Lufkin Industries, Texas Foundries, Inc., Southland Paper Mills, which made the South�s first newsprint from southern pines, and Angelina Plywood, which made some of the first southern pine plywood in the nation.

The A&NR also became a viable business partner with dozens of other businesses, transporting chemicals, construction materials, groceries, metals and other goods.

The railroad also became one of the proudest possessions of fhe founding families, and many of them spent time �just riding up and down the line� with the railroad crews.