This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/mEB.2ACI/448.1 Message Board Post: My father, Debs Simmons, was born near Sikes in 1906 and I decided this past Saturday to test his memory with your query. Debs thinks that Midway sawmill was on the Tremont & Gulf Railroad halfway between Chatham and Sikes and just inside Jackson Parish. Debs was born in 1906 at his parent's home near Friendship Baptist Church west of Sikes. He grew up there and graduated from high school in Sikes in the 1920's. Debs remembers that the railroad companies would erect small sawmills about every 15 miles along the right of way to place them near the timber supply thereby reducing the hauling distance to bring the cut timber to a mill. When the timber was gone, the mills were dismantled and relocated. Debs remembers as a boy that a sawmill spur ran east from Dodson [the Rock Island Railroad] to just below his father's place which was two miles southwest of Friendship Baptist Church. Friendship is not more than 2 miles west of Sikes and a 1/4 mile south of State Route 126 connecting Sikes, Gaars Mill, and Dodson. He also remembers a Midway Community Church in Jackson Parish. This site is not the same as the sawmill site. When State Route 34 reaches the Winn/Jackson parish line, a local road branches off to the northwest and runs to Jonesboro. Along this Jonesboro road about 2 or 3 miles was the Midway Church and cemetery and nearby was the Walker Community School. He remembers Midway Church as being one of the earliest community churches in the area and pre-dating the Civil War. But Debs does not recall a railroad or sawmill associated with this community in the early 1900's. His recollections of Midway Church are based upon hearing his older brothers talking about visiting there. I also exchanged e-mail with Doug Berlin of Bogolusa, Louisiana who was Chief Forester for Tremont Lumber Company in the 1950's and 1960's. Doug suggested that the best person to contact about the history of the Winn and Jackson parish timber industry is Estes Bozeman of Winnfield. Neither Debs nor Doug had any information on "public" versus "laborer" sawmills other than perhaps the "laborer" sawmills were for company use only and not available to the general public to saw timber brought to them by third parties. We are just guessing, but the "public sawmills" were likely larger and open to the general public, while the "laborer" mills were smaller and moved around frequently. Hope this helps and we'll be interested in hearing what else you learn about the sawmill.