Southern Forest Heritage Museum

On Valentine's Day 1969, the sawmill closed. The workers left their lunch pails on the bench. Nobody came back for them. What remains is fifty-seven acres of machinery that processed longleaf pine — the sawmill, planer mill, machine shop, commissary, and remnants of the company town that ran on the sound of those blades. The complex is on the National Register of Historic Places at the National Level of Significance. The timber cut here was shipped to New Orleans and built Higgins landing craft during WWII. The machinery that processed those trees still stands. Three historic locomotives are on site, including RR&G #106, under active restoration. You can ride the 1937 Doodlebug railcar for six dollars — a loop tour through the grounds on the same rails that hauled the timber out. The railcar runs, the engines turn over, the commissary is still there. You walk through what stopped but did not fall down. Open Wednesday through Saturday, nine to four. Adults eight dollars, children six to twelve pay five, under five free. Seventy-seven Longleaf Road in Long Leaf, three miles south of Forest Hill off US-165. Go for the Doodlebug, stay because the lunch pails are still there.