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Bonhomie & Hattiesburg Southern

 
In 1923 W.S.F. Tatum, owner of the Tatum Lumber Company of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, established the Bonhomie & Hattiesburg Southern Railway Company in order to purchase the Hattiesburg Branch from the Gulf, Mobile, & Ohio Railway. This twenty-seven mile branch connected Hattiesburg to the GM&O main line at Beaumont, Mississippi. Using the Hattiesburg Branch Tatum would be able to gain access to a new logging operation near Denco, Mississippi and transport lumber from Bonhomie, Mississippi, where Tatum owned a sawmill, to the GM&O junction at Beaumont where there was a connection to Mobile, Alabama.
Mississippi shortlineThe Interstate Commerce Commission approved the sale on January 5, 1925, and the Bonhomie & Hattiesburg Southern Railway went into operation on January 17, 1925. The entire capital stock of $335,000 was sold to the Tatum family, and all equipment for the railroad was leased from the Tatum Lumber Company including five locomotives, three of which were new Baldwin locomotives. The B&HS showed a profit for several years, but slipped into financial deficit as its profit from lumber traffic declined. Tatum's logging operation near Denco ended when the GM&O abandoned its Blodgett Branch, a dummy line from Denco to Piave, Mississippi. In 1953 Tatum sold the then unprofitable B&HS to the Fernwood, Columbia, & Gulf Railway.
 

Motive Power

Bonhomie & Hattiesburg Southern #250
Baldwin 2-6-2 Prairie (1926)
Beaumont, Ms | Sep 1959

Photograph by John C. Hawkins Click here to see this location with Google maps Click for more information reprints BHS1


Hattiesburg, Ms | Mar 1961
Photograph by John C. Hawkins Click here to see this location with Google maps Click for more information reprints BHS2
Beaumont, Ms | Sep 1959
Photograph by John C. Hawkins Click for more information reprints BHS3

Beaumont, Ms | Sep 1959
Photograph by John C. Hawkins Click for more information reprints BHS4
near Beaumont, Ms | Dec 1960
Photograph by John C. Hawkins Click for more information reprints BHS5

Hattiesburg, Ms | Dec 1960
Photograph by John C. Hawkins Click for more information reprints BHS6
Hattiesburg, Ms | Dec 1960
Photograph by John C. Hawkins Click for more information reprints BHS7

Beaumont, Ms | Sep 1959
Photograph by John C. Hawkins Click for more information reprints BHS8
Hattiesburg, Ms | Mar 1961
Photograph by John C. Hawkins Click for more information reprints BHS9

New Augusta, Ms | Sep 1959
Photograph by John C. Hawkins Click here to see this location with Google maps Click for more information reprints BHS10
Hattiesburg, Ms | Dec 1960
Photograph by John C. Hawkins Click for more information reprints BHS11
   

Bonhomie & Hattiesburg Southern #300
Baldwin 2-8-2 Mikado (1925)
Hattiesburg, Ms | Mar 1961

Photograph by John C. Hawkins Click for more information reprints BHS12

Bonhomie & Hattiesburg Southern's cap stacked 2-8-2 was, in proper perspective, a machine with which to move material for profit. Viewing it this way was not always that simple. Anyone with any emotion at all recognized this train in its rural Mississippi rounds as making for a deucedly pretty picture.
 

John Krause, Rails Through Dixie

Hattiesburg, Ms | Mar 1961
Photograph by John C. Hawkins Click for more information reprints BHS13
Hattiesburg, Ms | Mar 1961
Photograph by John C. Hawkins Click for more information reprints BHS14
   

Lagniappe


Beaumont, Ms | Sep 1959
Photograph by John C. Hawkins Click for more information reprints BHS15
Hattiesburg, Ms | Mar 1961
Photograph by John C. Hawkins Click for more information reprints BHS16


New Augusta, Ms | Mar 1961
Photograph by John C. Hawkins Click for more information reprints BHS17
near Hattiesburg, Ms | Mar 1961
Photograph by John C. Hawkins Click for more information reprints BHS18


near Hattiesburg, Ms | Mar 1961
Photograph by John C. Hawkins Click for more information reprints BHS19
near Hattiesburg, Ms | Mar 1961
Photograph by John C. Hawkins Click for more information reprints BHS20


near Hattiesburg, Ms | Dec 1960
Photograph by John C. Hawkins Click for more information reprints BHS21
near Beaumont, Ms | Dec 1960
Photograph by John C. Hawkins Click for more information reprints BHS22


near Hattiesburg, Ms | Mar 1961
Photograph by John C. Hawkins Click for more information reprints BHS23
Beaumont, Ms | Dec 1960
Photograph by John C. Hawkins Click for more information reprints BHS24


Beaumont, Ms | Sep 1959
Photograph by John C. Hawkins Click for more information reprints BHS25
Beaumont, Ms | Sep 1959
Photograph by John C. Hawkins Click for more information reprints BHS26

Links

Sources
   

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