Manning

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Manning, over in Angelina County. Now, some towns are born from rivers, some from crossroads, some from sheer stubbornness — and Manning, well, Manning was born from the bite of a saw blade. It starts with a man named D.

W. W. Manning, born in 1820, who had the vision — or maybe just the nerve — to plant a sawmill out here in the East Texas timber in 1867.

That sawmill was a seed, and East Texas being what it is, things grew fast. By around 1906, the Carter-Kelley Lumber Company had established operations right here on this same ground, and a whole community took shape around the sound and the smell and the work of cutting wood. By 1929, Manning wasn't some rough camp in the pines anymore.

Population of thirteen hundred people. A movie theater. Schools.

Churches. Stores. A post office.

A railroad depot. All of it nested in among the trees, humming along, the kind of town that feels like it'll just keep going forever. And that's usually right about the time the story takes a turn.

Somewhere in the mid-1930s, fire took the mill. Just like that — the engine that had driven everything, gone. And when the operations moved west to Camden, thirty miles away, Manning began the long, quiet exhale that towns take when the reason for being there has departed.

Then there's the supplemental part of this story, and it deserves to be told straight. After the mill fire of 1936, after the smoke cleared and the future got uncertain, a man named Morgan M. Flournoy bought this house and what was left of Manning.

He and his wife Ruby didn't leave. They stayed. They raised five children here among the ruins and the remnants.

What stands on the townsite today — homes, the ruins of the sawmill, a cemetery — is what a place looks like when it refuses to entirely disappear. Manning started with one man's sawmill in 1867, roared to life, and was quieted by fire. But some people just wouldn't let it go dark all the way.

What the marker says

The community of Manning grew up around the operations of the Carter-Kelley Lumber Company, established here about 1906. The town was named for D. W. W. Manning (b. 1820) who started a sawmill here in 1867. By 1929 Manning had a population of 1300 and included a movie theater, a school, stores, churches, a post office, and a railroad depot. The town began to decline after a fire destroyed the mill in the mid-1930s, and operations were moved to Camden (30 mi. W). The townsite is now marked by homes, sawmill ruins, and a cemetery. (1980, 1995) Supplemental plaque: This house and what was left of Manning after the mill fire of 1936 were bought by Morgan M. Flournoy. Here he and his wife Ruby raised five children.