Laurel Fork Railway

Lines and spurs carried timber from 12,000 acres (48,000 km²) of the mountainous watershed of the Laurel Fork of the Doe River that was estimated to contain 150 million board feet (350,000 m³) of lumber.

A proposed interchange with the East Tennessee and Western North Carolina Railroad failed over inability to negotiate rates favorable to both companies.

As a result, the Laurel Fork was incorporated as a common carrier and a six-mile (9.6 km) line into Elizabethton, Tennessee was built to carry finished lumber to an interchange with the Virginia and Southwestern Railway.

[1] Coupled with diminished production from the mill, this led to a November 7 filing for abandonment that year with the Interstate Commerce Commission.

Parts of the railroad grade are used by the Appalachian Trail in the Pond Mountain Wilderness Area through the Laurel Fork valley between Dennis Cove and Hampton.

The mill at Braemar, near present-day Hampton, Tennessee .
Shay .3 at Braemar.