Dierks Forests, Inc., known until 1954 as the Dierks Lumber and Coal Company and originally known as Choctaw Lumber Co., was a timber harvesting and processing company primarily in Oklahoma and Arkansas. Starting with a purchase of forest in 1903 in the

Indian Territory The Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the United States Government for the relocation of Native Americans who held aboriginal title to their land as a sovereign ...

, near Valliant, the company became known for its concept of the “traveling timber town”, in which the houses, the school, the church, and other buildings for the workers and their families were moved periodically to stay close to the advancing logging site. The company eventually owned 1.75 million acres of timberland, and was one of the largest family-owned landholding entities in the United States before it was sold to the Weyerhaeuser Company in 1969.

Legacy

One of the Dierks timber-hauling steam locomotives, a 1917 wood-burning Baldwin 2-6-2 Prairie-type, was donated to the City of Tulsa, Oklahoma after its retirement, and still stands in front of the west parking lot for the Tulsa Fairgrounds. That engine had “DIERKS FOREST” painted on the cab, while “207” was painted on the tender and on one of the locomotive domes. When the engine was repainted around 2011 or 2012, the lettering was lost. Another locomotive, the Dierks Forest 360, is an oil-burning 4-6-0 ten-wheeler built in 1920 and originally run by a Dierks subsidiary, the

Texas, Oklahoma and Eastern Railroad The Texas, Oklahoma and Eastern Railroad is a Class III short-line railroad owned by Patriot Rail Company of Jacksonville, Florida, with 39.3 miles of track in southeastern Oklahoma. It is operated along with its affiliate, the De Queen and E ...

. The engine is currently on display in

Queen Wilhelmina State Park Queen Wilhelmina State Park is a unit of Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism in the Ouachita Mountains. The original "Castle in the Sky" lodge was built in 1898 on 2,681-foot Rich Mountain, in Polk County, Arkansas. The park is on Talimena ...

. The town of Dierks, Arkansas was named for Hans Dierks, the oldest of the four Dierks brothers associated with the company. The city of

Broken Bow, Oklahoma Broken Bow is a city in McCurtain County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 4,120 at the 2010 census. It is named after Broken Bow, Nebraska, the former hometown of the city's founders, the Dierks brothers. Other Dierks-associate ...

started as a private development by a subsidiary of the Choctaw Lumber Company. The Dierks sawmill in town was one of the largest mills in the United States. The name of the town came about from

Broken Bow, Nebraska Broken Bow is a city in Custer County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 3,559 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Custer County. History Broken Bow was platted in 1882. Its name, likely suggested by a settler who found a b ...

, the previous home of founders Herman and Fred Dierks. The Dierks family donated land for public uses, including churches and schools, and a Dierks Elementary School continues in the city to this day. The town also continues to have a Dierks Street. Dierks Train #227 remains preserved in Broken Bow.{{cite web, url= http://cityofbrokenbow.com/dierks-train-227/ , title= Dierks Train #227, publisher=City of Broken Bow, accessdate=July 13, 2020 It is an oil-fired Baldwin 2-8-2 Mikado which was built in May 1927, operated until 1963 when it was replaced by a diesel locomotive, and donated in 1972 to the City of Broken Bow.

References

Defunct companies based in Arkansas Defunct companies based in Oklahoma Defunct forest products companies of the United States