The Sawmill Industry in Orange County

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. The sawmill and timber industry of Orange County, Texas. A story more than a hundred years in the making, and one that shaped just about everything in its path.

It starts, as so many Texas stories do, with folks who got here early and worked hard. Back in the 1820s, pioneer settlers were running hand-operated logging operations in the area. No steam, no machinery, just people and muscle and timber.

That's how it began. But 1835 brought a change. A man named Robert Boothe established the area's first mechanized sawmill.

That was a step forward. Then 1841 brought another one, when Paine and Bendy established the first steam-driven sawmill in the county. Steam.

That changes things considerably. For a while, the tree that ruled Orange County was the cypress. Cypress was the primary timber being harvested, and that held through the late 1850s.

Then the processing of native pine began, and the industry shifted again. Now here's where the story starts to spread across the landscape. As the number of mills began to rise in the late 1870s, sawmill company towns and logging camps were established throughout the county.

The Sabine and Neches rivers became working highways, with increasing quantities of logs rafted right down to the timber operations. Nature provided the roads, in a manner of speaking. But not every mill made it.

Some burned and were never rebuilt. That's a line worth sitting with. They burned, and nobody rebuilt them.

The land just moved on. In the early 1900s the industry went through a period of consolidation, and something else changed too. Water transportation, those rivers that had carried so many logs for so many years, started giving way to the railroad.

The railroad network was expanding rapidly, and the timber industry rode it. By 1909, four operations dominated the county's timber world. The Miller Lind, the A.

E. Smith Cypress, and Lutcher and Moore's upper and lower mills. Four mills standing tall over everything else.

But here's the thing about dominance. It doesn't always last. By 1931, the last of those four, Lutcher and Moore's upper mill, had closed.

One by one, they had all gone quiet. More than a hundred years of company towns and logging camps and river rafts and railroad cars, all of it woven into the fabric of Orange County life, and then, in time, folded away. The trees, the mills, the towns built around them.

That's the story the marker tells, and Orange County still carries it.

What the marker says

Orange County's sawmill and timber industry began with hand-operated logging operations run by pioneer settlers in the 1820s. In 1835 Robert Boothe established the area's first mechanized sawmill, and in 1841 Paine & Bendy established the first steam-driven sawmill. Cypress was the primary timber harvested until the late 1850s when the processing of native pine began. Sawmill company towns and logging camps were established throughout the county as the number of mills began to rise in the late 1870s. Increasing quantities of logs were transported by raft on the Sabine and Neches rivers to area timber operations. Many mills burned and were never rebuilt. In the early 1900s the area's sawmill and timber industry underwent a period of consolidation and a transition from reliance on water transportation to the use of the rapidly expanding railroad network. By 1909 the Miller Lind, A. E. Smith Cypress, and Lutcher & Moore's upper and lower mills dominated the area's timber industry. By 1931, however, the last of these four mills, the Lutcher & Moore upper mill, had closed. For more than 100 years the sawmill and timber industry's company towns, logging camps, and transportation system helped define Orange County life.