Lindsey Wagon Traditional Cache
King Kong: The container is missing AGAIN!!!!
-
Difficulty:
-
-
Terrain:
-
Size: 
(regular)
Related Web Page
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
A new trail in the Laurel Sportsplex, there are several benches to
rest on before you get to the cache.
The container is a small ammo box with a lot of goodies to swap.
The container is .24 from the parking area down a nice trail. There
is a trail under construction that takes you through the woods, I
guess it's about one mile total walk. I plan on putting more caches
in the area, maybe even a night-time only cache.
The information below is taken from a speech by Sam Lindsey Jr.
about the Lindsey Eight Wheel Wagon.
"Trucks filled with poles, logs, pulpwood, chips, Masonite,
plywood, and paper products fill the highways of Mississippi on any
working day. More than half of the working Mississippians owe their
jobs to the timber industry today. Forest products have been
harvested in the state for about 100 years; truly, timber is a
renewable resource. John Lindsey became linked to the timber
industry when he started a sawmill in Sandersville in the early
1890’s. This mill furnished timbers for the New
Orleans/Northeastern Railroad being constructed between Meridian
and New Orleans. Then, logs were hauled out of the forest by
four-wheel wagons; unfortunately, they could not carry a very heavy
load. When one of these wagons had a wheel drop into a ditch or
stump hole, the axle would break, and the wagon would have to be
repaired -- a time-consuming task. Along with this problem, logging
with these wagons could only be done during the dry season. They
would become stuck in wet or swampy ground. However, most of the
hardwood timber was located in the swamps, making the harvest of
that timber difficult and costly. John figured there had to be a
better way of hauling logs to the mills. His idea was to build a
wagon with two parts, each with two axles and four wheels, hinged
in the middle. This would make it flexible enough so that when a
wheel dropped into a ditch or stump hole, it would not break an
axle. This also made the wagon strong enough to carry heavier
loads. It was named THE LINDSEY EIGHT WHEEL WAGON. This new concept
of a wagon was so successful, John patented it on January 3, 1899.
He and Sam William, a brother and Sandersville dentist, started
manufacturing them in Sandersville. The first wagon had solid
wheels made from gum logs. The solid gum wheel arrangement worked
fine, but the wheels wore out too quickly. To compensate, John and
Sam developed a spoked wheel with steel rims. The plant burned in
1900, and John decided to rebuild it in Laurel. He made this move
because Laurel was the "Yellow Pine Capital of the World" at this
time. The Laurel plant was located on 40 acres of land in the
Northeast section of Laurel on the GM&N Railroad. Two huge
buildings, each 425 feet long, took the raw materials (White Oak,
Hickory, Gum, and steel) in at one end of the building and finished
wagons came out the other end. This was the first plant in
Mississippi to manufacture a complete product from raw materials.
February 3, 1903, saw the first international shipment of these
wagons to British Honduras. In 1904, the Lindsey Wagon Company was
the largest manufacturing plant in the state. These wagons were
used to haul logs through difficult terrain. They would haul to the
sawmill or to a logging camp connected to the sawmill by a railroad
line. The driver and team were key ingredients in making the system
work. Mules were not used as much as oxen. Mules, with their
smaller feet, became afraid and stopped working when they were on
boggy or soft ground. Oxen, on the other hand, had larger feet and
did not mind the soft footing. The introduction of the Civilian
Conservation Corps (CCC) during the Great Depression and the road
they built sounded the death of the wagon. Trucks, faster and more
economical, replaced the wagon using those roads. The last wagon
was produced in 1964. Only memories remain of the great impact that
the Lindsey Eight Wheel Wagon made on the logging industry in the
United States and many foreign countries. The last wagon is owned
by Sam Lindsey Jr. Presently, it is on loan to the Mississippi
Agricultural Museum in Jackson. When you visit it and the other
displays, I hope you will have a feeling for logging and the timber
industry as it was a century ago."
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
ybbx haqre