The Jefferson Lumber Company was founded by James Bemis, W. B. Ward, and others in the early 1880s, and lumber interests stretching as far north as Texarkana. The companies eventually failed financially, and most of the assets at Kildare, Linden, and Jefferson came under the control of Clark & Boice Lumber Company of Jefferson, including the tracks and rolling stock of the Kildare & Linden and the Atlanta & Mt. Pleasant.
W. B. Ward and James Hervey Bemis, both primary owners in Jefferson Lumber Company, sold company acreage as early as 1885, according to county records. The Jefferson Lumber Company was reported to be cutting 40,000 feet daily in 1893 at its Jefferson plant and 50,000 feet daily at its Kildare plant. Reed reports that Jefferson Lumber had its own logging tram, the Kildare & Linden Railway Company, which operated from 1889 to 1901, when it was abandoned, according to Zlatkovich. In fact, the Jefferson & Northwestern Railway Company, the steam logging tram road of the Clark & Boice Lumber Company at Jefferson, acquired the Kildare & Linden. Jefferson Lumber Company also owned the Atlanta & Mt Pleasant Railway Company, another tram road.