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Texas
Sawmill Towns THE
FRONT CAMPS
by Bob Bowman
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With
names like Lindsey Springs, Fastrill and Alceda, they played a supporting role
in the development of Texas' forest products industry between 1890 and 1940.
Today, they're little more than trails or clearings in the forest. They were
logging camps - the short lived and sometimes mobile communities which supported
the earliest East Texas sawmills.
Frequently called "front camps"
because they were located at the edge of a forest, the settlements usually lasted
only as long as the timber they cut. When a tract was exhausted, the camps --
housing, stores, equipment, people -- were loaded onto railroad cars or trucks
and moved to another location. |
| | "Frost
Lumber Industries, Nacogdoches, Texas"
Postcard
courtesy rootsweb.com/~txgenweb// postcards/Index.html |
Lindsey
Springs
One
of the oldest logging camps, Lindsey Springs, was built by Southern Pine Lumber
Company in 1897 in Angelina County on a tract of timber purchased to serve
the lumber company's new mill in Diboll.
The camp was built in
three sections, each surrounding the natural springs which formed a creek and
provided drinking water for the camp families. The town had about 110 people in
25 households, including a boarding house with 11 boarders. Professions included
laborers, teamsters, saw filers, tie makers, section foremen, log contractors,
foremen, commissary clerks, carpenters and a potter.
While Lindsey Springs
had a tram railroad to connect it with Diboll, the residents of many other logging
camps in East Texas were marooned in the forest, and became reliant on each other.
The camps, although rustic, did provide the necessities of life for their
inhabitants, such as schools, commissary stores, churches, recreational facilities,
post offices, and often a doctor.
Housing, which was provided by the
lumber companies, was temporary and usually consisted of small, wood-frame structures
with attached porches. The buildings were often designed so they could be easily
moved. |
Acol
Acol,
a logging camp owned by Angelina County Lumber Company, was moved on railroad
cars so it could be moved from forest to forest. The town later became famous
in forest history for its "wandering post office." |
Fastrill
One
of the most famous logging camps was Fastrill, located near the Neches River in
Cherokee County.
Southern Pine built Fastrill in 1922. Of all
the company's logging camps -- including Alceda, White City, Bluff City, Lindsey
Springs, Walkerton, Neff, Huff, Gilbert, Buggerville, Gipson, and Apple Springs
-- Fastrill is remembered best by the company's logging families.
"It was as pretty a logging camp as a person ever went into," recalls
Wesley Ashworth, a carpenter who lived there. "It had wide, long streets,
sycamore trees up and down the streets, and they were really pretty. It was on
a sandy hill, but it was a beautiful logging camp."
Fastrill --
which lasted until 1941 -- got its name from a combination of three lumber company
officials: FA from F.F Farrington, a former Diboll postmaster; STR from P.H. Strauss,
who was in charge of camps or Southern Pine; and ILL from Will Hill, the company's
woods foreman.
[See Legacy of
an Oldtimer by Bob Bowman
- Alvin Burchfield remembers Fastrill] |
The
logging camps were critical to the early growth of lumber companies because they
kept a steady flow of logs flowing from the forests into the sawmill towns, But
as newer methods of logging and transportation became available, the logging camps
began to fade from the woods.
Today, theyıre only a dim memory -- except
to the people who lived there.
Published
with permission
All
Things Historical January 4, 2004 Column
Syndicated in over 40 East
Texas newspapers
(All Things Historical is a service of the East
Texas Histroical Association. Bob Bowman is a former president of the association
and the author of 30 books about East Texas.) |
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