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Lisa -- From 1930 until the start of WWII my dad owned a small lumber company in a little town of 4,000 in northeast Arkansas right next to the Frisco main line between St. Louis and Memphis. I was quite small then but I spent quite a bit of time there and remember very well the bins that you described. There was an "L"-shaped shed on the north end of the yard with the short end of the L on the east. The four bins were constructed of railroad ties and one contained gravel for making concret, one contained pea gravel, one contained sand and the last one had been used for coal but was never filled during the period just before the war. Can't say what year he had his last shipment of coal brought in but I do remember the remnants of chucks of coal in the bottom of the bin. There was a straight shed on the south side of the property which extended from the street to the railroad right of way as did the L building on the north side. Frisco had a siding of the main line beginning at the south side of the main street through the center of town and extending alongside the mainline for two-three miles. A spur off that siding served the lumber company and the ice plant about 1/4 mile south. The spur ran alongside the bins and the short end of the L and underneath the building overhang so the cars could be unloaded in rainy weather. Dad had two flatbed trucks for lumber delivery and a forklift for unloading the boxcars of palatized shipments of plywood, cement, etc. The lumber was unloaded by hand, generally off flat cars, onto the flat bed trucks then driven to the sheds for storage. Sometimes the lumber would come in boxcars. I don't remember a loading platform of any kind...rather, the forklift would unload the boxcar from the doors until there was sufficient space to maneuver inside then ramps would be put in place and the forklift would be run inside the boxcar to bring the pallets out to the waiting truck. When the truck was loaded, it would move to the shed where the lumber was to be stocked, the forklift would come out of the boxcar and then unload the truck into the shed. It usually took a couple of days or more for two men to unload a boxcar or flatcar and store its contents. The summer before the war, I remember dad renting a tractor-trailer flatbed and driving to Memphis to pick up a load of lumber. Don't know whether this spelled the end of railroad delivery or not of if it did, why. The building which housed the offices and hardware sales was rectangular in shape with a false front on which the sign "Home Lumber Company" ran across the face. The parking lot and yard were covered with crushed limestone. The buildings were lapboard sided and painted a light yellow. On the front of the office was a large window, about the size of a picture window. It was next to an entrance door to the left which had small panels of glass from top to bottom inside the door frame. There were no other windows in the front of the building which I would guest was about 50 feet wide. On the back side was my dad's office with another large picture window through which he could view the activities in the yard. That was in the southeast cornder. Dad also had a door which allowed him direct access to the yard. North of the center of the back side was and exit door for customers to access the yard. It had a large glass pane in the upper half of the door. As a side note, the ice house did not provide ice for railroad reefers but it shipped out huge qantities of large blocks of ice that were loaded onto boxcars daily. The blocks were as taller than a man and were slid on their ends into the boxcars. It took two men to handle them and they were almost as tall as the boxcar door. I have no idea where they were being shipped to. Hope you find that informative and helpful. Len
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