Angelina County Lumber Company Letterhead from the early 1900s. In the late 1800s Angelina County was primarily composed of agricultural communities. Bordered on the North by the Angelina River and on the South by the Neches River, Angelina County lays firmly in the Texas Forest Region that covers the majority of East Texas. Its large stands of pine are intermixed with fertile farming land, and hardwoods surround its creeks and rivers. By 1880, the farmers of Angelina County had cultivated 25,000 acres of its 940 square miles.1 The county was organized on April 22, 1846, and was one of many counties that were cut out of Nacogdoches County. Its county seat, located in Lufkin, had total population of 529 in 1890, according to the 1900 Federal Census. By 1900, this figure had risen to 1,527.2 With the coming of the railroads in the 1880s, the economic focus of Angelina County shifted from agriculture to timber production. This industry was boosted by the World's Fair of 1893, which led to a popularity in using Southern Pine as a building material. In the words of one author, "After the railroads arrived, the foundation was laid for a way of life and an economy in Angelina County built upon timber and forest products."3 Offices of the Angelina County Lumber Company at Keltys. The exact date of this photograph is unknown (Angelina & Neches River Railroad Collection, A&NR Offices, Lufkin, Texas) It was during this time that Joseph Hubert Kurth, Sr. bought the J. A. Ewing and Company sawmill at Keltys, Texas. Although he was a German national, Kurth was no stranger to the lumber business. Since his immigration to the United States in 1878, Kurth had worked in sawmills in various capacities. Eventually, he purchased a sawmill in Polk County near the tracks of the Houston, East and West Texas Railroad (HE&WT) which he called Kurth Station.4 Seeing the opportunity to expand his operations, Kurth bought the mill at Keltys for $11, 007.00 on March 10, 1888.5 Blueprint of a portion of Keltys in 1936 (Angelina & Neches River Railroad Collection, A&NR Offices, Lufkin, Texas). Transportation is vital to the forest products industry, and with the coming of the regional and trunk line railroads, shortline logging railroads filled the mill owners' need to transport logs from the forest and to send loaded box cars to the larger lines for cross county shipment. When J. H. Kurth, Sr. bought the mill at Keltys, he not only purchased the mill and its machinery, but also what would later become the Angelina & Neches River Railroad. Sometime before 1904, Kurth and his partners (S. W. Henderson, Eli Wiener, and Sam Wiener) expanded and modernized the mill, but the entire complex burned to the ground in 1906. The partners, undaunted by the fire, rebuilt the mill and continued to update its equipment. The milltown continued to grow, as did the mill, and by 1948 twelve hundred people called Keltys home.6 Locomotive 110 pulling out of Keltys in 1962 (Angelina & Neches River Railroad Collection, A&NR Offices, Lufkin, Texas). The Angelina County Lumber Company, like many other lumber companies, suffered through times of hardship, but the company survived them through shrewd management pratices. The company grew from its humble origins into one of the largest forest products producers in East Texas.7 In 1966, the Angelina County Lumber Company was shut down and sold to the Owens-Illinois Company. Parts of the site still remain, but most of it has been torn down by its new owners.   Keltys, Texas, as it appeared in 1999 (Photograph by T. McKinney). Notes 1"Angelina County" in The New Handbook of Texas, Volume 1 (Austin: The Texas State Historical Association), 1996, P. 181. 2Lufkin has not always been the County Seat of Angelina County. Census Reports, Volume 1, Twelfth Census of the United States, Taken in the year 1900, (Washington, D. C.: United States Census Office), 1901, P. 476. 3"Angelina County" in The New Handbook of Texas, Volume 1 (Austin: The Texas State Historical Association), 1996, P. 181. 4The New Handbook of Texas, Volume 3 (Austin: The Texas State Historical Association), 1996, P. 1167-1168. 5James A. Ewing and Charles L. Kelty to J. H. Kurth, Deed Records of Angelina County, Book P, Angelina County Courthouse, Lufkin, Texas, P.479-483. 6Block, W. T., East Texas Mill Towns and Ghost Towns, Volume One (Lufkin, Texas: Best of East Texas Publishers), 1994, P. 37-45. 7Maxwell, Robert S. and Robert D. Baker, Sawdust Empire (College Station: Texas A&M University Press), 1983, P. 107-111. Main Page | Steam Locomotives | Diesel Locomotives | Complete Engine Roster | History © The Center for East Texas Studies Stephen F. Austin State University Nacogdoches, Texas 75962 U. S. A.