Tennessee Coal & Lumber Company

PostedApril 25, 2026

UpdatedApril 25, 2026

Bybenwgarrett@gmail.com

I now have thorough material for this article. A note on the name: the user asked about the “Tennessee

Tennessee Coal & Lumber Co. (also referred to in some sources as the Tennessee Lumber & Coal Company) was a timber milling and lumber products enterprise that operated in the community of Glenmary from approximately the late 1880s through 1927. It was the principal successor industry to the coal and coke trade at Glenmary, sustaining the community’s economy for more than two decades after coal mining ceased, and its owners later played a pivotal role in the founding of the Oneida & Western Railroad.

Origins and Establishment

The first lumber mill at Glenmary was known as the Tennessee Coal and Lumber Company. It was established to saw, cut, and surface poplar, pine, and hemlock. Its founding grew directly out of the same economic momentum that had produced the Glenmary Coal & Coke Co. — the opening of Scott County’s natural resources to outside investment following the completion of the Cincinnati & Southern Railroad in 1880.

Regarding the precise founding date, the historical record contains some variation. According to historian H. Clay Smith in Dusty Bits of the Forgotten Past, the Glenmary mill was started in 1908 by the Hagemeyer brothers, Charley and C.C., and went by the name of Tennessee Coal and Lumber Company. Other accounts suggest a mill of some form had been operating at Glenmary somewhat earlier, with the lumber mill being transformed into a hardwood flooring mill in 1906, implying a pre-existing operation. The company by its formal name appears to have been organized or reorganized under the Hagemeyer family around 1906–1908.

The Hagemeyer Family and Ownership

The company is most closely associated with the Hagemeyer family of Cincinnati, Ohio. Ira Hall Hagemeyer (February 10, 1881 – December 19, 1936) was an owner of the Tennessee Coal & Lumber Co. in Glenmary, along with his brother, Bartlett Hagemeyer. The Hagemeyer brothers were the sons of Christian C. Hagemeyer (1849–1920), a German immigrant, and Mary E. Hall (1851–1890).

The mill passed to Clifford, Hall, and Bartlett Hagemeyer and their sister — all of Cincinnati, Ohio. According to historian H. Clay Smith, in his book Dusty Bits of the Forgotten Past, Clifford Wiley Hagemeyer and their sister, Mary Hagemeyer Frye, were also owners of the mill. Glenmary residents reportedly referred to part of the area as “Haggimore Town,” a colloquial rendering of the family name, reflecting the Hagemeyers’ prominent presence in the community.

Operations

Timber and Milling

The company processed the old-growth timber of the surrounding Cumberland Plateau, drawing on the abundant virgin stands of hardwood and softwood that had not yet been stripped from the hills of southern Scott County and neighboring areas. The lumber business was in full swing, and much of the timber was brought to the mill by wagon over the Nydeck Road from neighboring counties.

Product Evolution

With time, the Tennessee Coal & Lumber Co. mill at Glenmary changed to a mill that produced hardwood flooring. Beginning in 1906, it also made weather-boarding and ceiling planks. This shift toward finished wood products such as flooring reflected broader market demands of the era, as residential construction across the United States was booming in the early twentieth century.

The Company Town

Worker Housing

The lumber company had houses for laborers on Red Hill overlooking Glenmary. The houses were built on the same pattern and near a spring that is still flowing. Later a well was drilled in a central location for all to use. Only one house was different from the others — the one used by the mill foreman, Sylvester Wright, which was largest to accommodate his large family.

In 1906, the Hagemeyer brothers began a housing project on Nydeck Road. As early as 1916, oil and gas was discovered by drilling in this area. These homes were heated by gas.

Community Life

Along the level land by Davis Creek were homes, stores, saloons, and boarding houses. Dr. Pitney Phillips had an office above the Pemberton store until the late 1920s. In the early days he rode a horse from Robbins to Glenmary for his office visits.

The lumber company took an active, if paternalistic, interest in the community’s civic institutions. The lumber company helped support the subscription school connected with the Presbyterian church by cutting men’s wages about $2.00 per month to help with school expenses.

After the close of coal production, the laboring men just came to the lumber mill at Glenmary to work, or to work on the railroad, which had to be kept up. In this way, the Tennessee Coal & Lumber Co. served as a vital economic bridge between the coal era and whatever might follow.

The Jamestown Railroad Charter

At the height of its operations, the company made an ambitious bid to expand its reach by securing a railroad connection westward. The Tennessee Coal & Lumber Company incorporated the Jamestown Railroad on Oct. 29, 1912. The company, which was based in Glenmary, planned to build a railroad linking Glenmary and Jamestown by following a route roughly along present-day Nydeck Road and S.R. 52.

The railroad was never built as originally conceived. The Hagemeyer brothers sold their interest in the mill at Glenmary shortly thereafter and moved to Verdun near Oneida, where they purchased a mill operated by the Tennessee Stave & Lumber Co. In 1913, they amended the charter to Oneida & Western Railroad, and partnered with O.H. Anderson, J.T. Anderson, and W.C. Anderson. The Oneida & Western Railroad, which eventually linked Oneida to Jamestown and became one of the most storied short-line railroads in East Tennessee, thus grew directly out of the Tennessee Coal & Lumber Co.’s unrealized railroad ambitions.

Destruction and Decline

In the Spring of 1927, there was a disastrous event. The lumber mill was destroyed by fire, and many were heard to say, “there goes our living.” By this time the virgin timber had been cut and it did not seem profitable to rebuild.

The timing could not have been worse. In 1929, there was a flood that even washed some of the buildings along Davis Creek from their foundations. Soon after came the bank failures that affected the whole country, and next was the Great Depression. The only work left now for people in the area was that of the railroad.

The mill fire of 1927, coming after the virgin timber had already been exhausted, effectively ended the industrial era at Glenmary. The community had already been diminished by the closure of the coal operation in 1904, and the destruction of the mill removed the last pillar of its economic foundation.

Legacy

The Tennessee Coal & Lumber Co. served as the economic lifeblood of Glenmary for roughly two decades after coal mining ended, keeping the community viable through the early twentieth century. Its most enduring legacy, however, may be indirect: through the Hagemeyer family’s incorporation of the Jamestown Railroad charter and its subsequent transformation into the Oneida & Western Railroad, the company’s ambitions helped bring rail service to a vast and previously inaccessible stretch of the Cumberland Plateau, opening the Big South Fork region to further development and connecting communities along a 30-mile corridor between Oneida and Jamestown for nearly half a century.