Angelina County Lumber Company [Cover]
Name/Title
Angelina County Lumber Company [Cover]Description
June 29, 1905 cover from the Angelina County Lumber Company to Leonidas Shield.Context
Early production at the Angelina County Lumber Company amounted to a few thousand feet of lumber a day. The mill was expanded twice before 1900, when it had a capacity of more than 50,000 board feet a day. After a fire destroyed the mill in 1906, a larger one was built with double that capacity. A fire destroyed this mill in December 1939, and it was replaced in 1940 by a steel and concrete mill able to produce 12,500 board feet per hour. During World War II the Keltys mill received the first American Army-Navy E Award for efficiency and continuous production. It contributed lumber for army camps, crate materials, and ship timbers. Full-time production continued unabated even after the war was over. By 1948 the mill was producing 45 million board feet of pine limber and 15 million feet of hardwood. In that year it employed 465 people and had an annual payroll of $1,104,000. In 1886 Keltys had a population of about 500. By 1925 it had grown to 800 and by the late 1930s to 1,000; in the early 1970s it was 800. The Methodist church began meeting in the school in 1890, and the present First Methodist Church was established in 1899. The town acquired a post office in 1900. When the Angelina County Lumber Company was sold to Owens-Illinois Glass Company of Toledo, Ohio, in 1966, it was the longest continually operating timber concern in Texas. The sawmill had been closed in December 1965, and the company general store and office building were soon razed. Nothing is left of the mill but its foundations. Many fine homes from the lumber-boom period remain in Keltys, including the Classic Revival home of J. H. Kurth. Keltys was still listed as a community in 1990, when it had a population of 800, but no population estimates were available in 2000. By that time Keltys had disappeared from county highway maps. Only the Keltys Cemetery was shown within the city limits of Lufkin.Category
Lumber Industry
Agriculture, TSHA Categories