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All of the houses at Hayward were the property of the lumber company and all of the employees paid the company rent. The house pictured above was the residence of the company doctor.

A community is composed of and defined by the people who live there, and Hayward was no exception to this rule. All of the people who worked at the mill or for the mill's shortline railroad lived at Hayward. All of the houses at Hayward were owned by the lumber company and the employees paid the company rent. As the workers moved up the "corporate ladder," they were able to afford better houses. Therefore, the house you lived in was a symbol of your rank in the company. The houses at Hayward were all grouped by how much rent was collected on them, therefore your neighbors held a similar position in the company.

Housing at Hayward was segregated. The white population of milltown lived to the east of the Nacogdoches and Southeastern railroad tracks, and the black population was on the west side of the tracks.

Black housing at Hayward, Texas was on the west side of the Nacogdoches & Southeastern Railroad tracks. The hotel and Commissary are in the fore ground.

Single men lived in what was commonly referred to as "the hotel." The hotel was a two story wooden building located on the east side of the commissary on a gravel hill. The hotel was described in an oral history interview as having rooms for twelve men and, "...a kitchen, dining room, and a lounge downstairs."1

The houses at Hayward can be classified into four catagories: 1) Low rent, 2) Medium rent, 3) Managerial, and 4) Black. The low rent houses were located on the mill site's far east side. These houses were one- or two-bedroom houses and lacked the finished look the other houses had. Medium rent houses were nicer homes with small yards. Managerial homes were far and away the best homes in Hayward. These houses had bigger yards, larger rooms, and were sometimes two story homes. These houses were the first to have indoor plumbing. All of the homes for the back millworkers were similar to those of the low rent houses.

The drawings on the left are taken from the 1922 Sanborn map of Hayward, and the ones on the right were taken from the 1929 Sanborn map. Notice that in 1929 there were more kinds of houses. In 1929, the black section of Hayward was included in the map. Sadly, these maps have no interior details of these houses.

All of the houses at Hayward had wood-buring stoves. These provided heating for the house as well as a place to cook. The houses also had eletricity which was generated from the sawmill's boilers. These boilers were fueled with sawdust and provided power to the mill as well as the rest of the community.2

Low rent housing at Hayward was located on the far east side of the community. Most of these houses were occupied by laborers and lacked the finished look of the medium rent and managerial homes.

Everyone at Hayward bought all of their food and merchandise from the commissary. The commissary was located next to the hotel near the tracks of the Nacogdoches and Southeastern Railroad. All of the goods in the store were unloaded from boxcars on a Nacogdoches and Southeastern siding through a sliding door on the side of the building. The goods sold here included clothing, food, hardware, and dry goods. The commissary also had a butcher shop. If an item was not in stock or not usually carried, it could be ordered. 3

The commissary and hotel as pictured on the 1929 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map (Left) and in a reassembled 1927 panoramic image (Right).

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1 Oral history interview with Claudine Woodward McKinney of Nacogdoches, Texas, 7 November 1998, Authors' collections. [BACK]
2 Oral history interview with Kelso Woodward of Nacogdoches, Texas, 12 November 1998, Author's Collections. [BACK]
3 Oral history interview with Kelso Woodward of Nacogdoches, Texas, 12 November 1998, Author's Collections. [BACK]
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