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Home Texas San-augustine County San Augustine Early Texas Sawmill
     

Early Texas Sawmill

  Texas Historical Markers
San Augustine, TX, USA

Latitude & Longitude: 31° 31' 44.74643999988", -94° 6' 53.41362999984"
 
    Texas State
Historical Marker
     Texas' first million-dollar industry-- lumbering -- was born to recorded history with the building of two sawmills in 1819. One, located on Ironosa Creek in present San Augustine County, was run by pioneer Wm. Ward; the other was in Nacogdoches. In 1825 yet another mill (one-fourth mi. N) was turning out about 500 board feet of lumber a day. Wm. Quirk was miller. In these times, trees were felled using an ax and a wedge. Then one end of each huge log was slung under a heavy cart and dragged to a stream or road. At the mill the logs were often stored in a mill pond, to keep them from rotting, and then they were sawed by various methods. Two primitive ones-- soon abandoned -- were pit sawing (a slow, exhausting two-man process) and the muley-mill powered by animals. A later...

This page last updated: 7/15/2008

Early Texas Sawmill Historical Marker Location Map, San Augustine, Texas