Mary Belcher Interview

Mary Belcher by Kevin Dehart

"The railroad came in about 1909 and 1910. They opened a Sunlight Oil Company that wanted to come In here and cut the timber and get the lumber to make barrels and put oil and stuff in.  They shipped the wood out of here and then the barrels were made which were then sent to get oil put in them.  The railroad shipped timber sawed logs and things like that. They set stave mills up here on Dry Fork and Laurel. Sawed staves and shipped them out of here to make oil barrels. Stave mills is what they called them.  I used to ride it from here to Narrows and back. I remember they run an excursion from Round Bottom down here to Narrows and there was so many people. They didn't have passenger cars or anything. You just had flats to sit on and seats and things. And it rained and we was the wettest bunch you have ever seen. The water just dripped out of us ... mommy and daddy and me. I remember that very distinctly."