Chippewa County.

Outside of a few spurs of the John S Owen Lumber Company in the far northeast part of the county (see Rusk County page) and a few spurs of the Stanley Merrill & Phillips (see Taylor,Clark, & Rusk pages) there was only 1 logging railroad in Chippewa County.

1.) Wisconsin Ruby & Southern Railroad. This railroad ran from late 1907 until 1912. It connected with the CSPM&O Hannibal branch at Arnold(about 6 miles northeast of Holcombe) It ran south about 6 miles to what is now a ghost town called Ruby. The Hawn Lumber Company had its mill there. Hawn named the town and the railroad Ruby after his daughter. The village of Arnold was originally called Silhawn and the railroad was sometimes referred to as the Wisconsin Ruby & Silhawn. More often than not local residents mad fun of the initials saying "We Run Slow". The WR&S owned one locomotive, a 0-4-2 Forney tanker, which originally started out as Chicago South Side Elevated #29.