Name: Colmesneil, Texas
Address: Colmesneil, TX

The Mill That Ran on Steam and Steel RoadyGoat

1883

In the pine country around Colmesneil, the Yellow Pine Lumber Company built one of the region's most advanced sawmills, founded in 1883. Its machinery is a lesson in early industrial engineering. A large circular saw could rip about seventy-five thousand board feet of lumber in a day. A planing mill dressed rough boards smooth at roughly one hundred thousand board feet, and steam-heated dry kilns held about fifty thousand board feet to pull moisture from green wood so it would not warp. Reportedly this was the first company in Texas to use a steam lumber stacker, a machine that mechanically piled heavy boards instead of relying only on hand labor. By 1889 the mill employed about three hundred men. Then a fire in 1893 destroyed the mill and much of the town around it, and the operation did not recover.

Two Towns, One Railroad Crossing RoadyGoat

1881

This spot became Tyler County's rail hub because two lines met here. The Texas and New Orleans ran north to south between Rockland and Beaumont, and the Trinity and Sabine, chartered in 1881 and tied to the Jay Gould railroad empire, came east from Trinity roughly sixty-six miles to end at Colmesneil. The crossing gave the town the only railroad turntable in the county, a rotating track used to turn a locomotive around. The line's actual terminus first sat in a neighboring settlement called Ogden. A long rivalry ran between families of the two towns, the Manns and Sturrocks of Colmesneil and the Ogdens and Campbells of Ogden. In early 1888 the two places consolidated under a single name, Colmesneil, and the timber and cattle of the county rolled out from here by rail.

The Conductor Who Named the Town RoadyGoat

1883

Colmesneil carries the name of a railroad man. William Taylor Colmesneil was one of the first conductors on the Texas and New Orleans line, a passenger run between Beaumont and Rockland. In 1883 he bought a lot here and built a frame house, and by local account he set it to face the tracks so he could watch the trains from his porch. He lived here only a short time. In 1885 he sold the house to Frank Patterson and moved on with the railroad, married Fannie Taylor in 1886, and kept working as a conductor until he died in Evansville, Indiana, in 1907. The town kept his name. His restored home at 106 South Pitzer now serves as a house museum, and a state historical marker there, dedicated in 2008, tells the story.

Colmesneil, W.T., House

1883

Willaim Taylor Colmesneil, the man for whom the town was named, built this house in 1883. He was one of the first conductors on the Texas and New Orleans Railroad, a passenger train that ran from Beaumont to Rockland. According to legend, Colmesneil had the house built facing the railroad tracks so that he could sit on the front porch and warch the trains go by. Colmesneil sold the house to Frank Patterson in 1885 and moved on with the railroad. He married Fannie Taylor in 1886, and one child, Charles, was born to the marriange. Colmesneil worked as a railroad conductor throughout his life and died in Evansville, Indiana in 1907. Cowners of the home after Patterson included J.E. Votaw, Dr. William Martin Van Buren Stewart, Robert L. Mann and Katherine Magouyrk.The original section of the shiplap siding house is a center-passage floor plan with a large room on either side of a hallway and tapered brick chimneys on the ends. Paired double-hung windows are aligned on either side of the chimneys and the entry door. An early addition of rooms and a new porch entry created a modified L-plan layout.Recorded Texas Historic Landmark-2008

Historical Marker →

Colmesneil, TX

1881

Colmesneil is at the intersection of U.S. Highway 69 and Farm Road 256, nine miles north of Woodville in north central Tyler County. The town, sometimes referred to as Colmesneil Junction, was named for one of the first conductors on the Texas and New Orleans Railroad through the area. The T&NO line was crossed at Colmesneil by the Trinity and Sabine. In 1881 Jay Gould , of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad, secured a charter for the Trinity and Sabine and built sixty-six miles of track from Trinity to Colmesneil, which became a railroad center for Tyler County. It had the only turntable in the county at the end of the Waco, Beaumont, Trinity and Sabine line. The actual terminus of the railroad was not located in what today is thought of as downtown Colmesneil, but rather in what flourished for a time as a neighboring town called Ogden. The two towns had a long-standing feud, largely between the Manns and Sturrocks of Colmesneil and the Ogdens and Campbells of Ogden. The two towns were consolidated under the single name of Colmesneil in early 1888. In 1889 Colmesneil shipped cotton and other products from Jasper, Newton, Sabine, San Augustine, and Angelina counties. Since the land around the town is too hilly for cultivation, local products were confined to timber and some cattle. The Yellow Pine Lumber Company operated a sawmill in Colmesneil in the 1880s. At one time Colmesneil was larger than Beaumont. The S. H. Meadows general store, owned and operated by the same family since 1892, is the oldest business establishment in Tyler County. The East Texas Hotel was built by Levi Fortenberry in 1888, bought by C. W. Matthews in 1916, and owned by Mrs. Easter Mann in 1986. The first post office in Colmesneil opened in 1882. The population was at its height around 1890 at 1,016. By 1900 it was down to 632, and in 1931 it was 370, but by 1939 it was back to 1,000. In the late 1980s it was 600. Nearby Lake Tejas, fed by cool springs, provided water sports for a large East Texas area. At that time the town had a bank, a car dealership, several small grocery stores, and a good high school with an excellent sports record. In 1990 the population was 569, and in 2000 it was 638.

Tsha Handbook →

Enloe Mill

1840

Site of One of Earliest Tyler County Landmarks Enloe Mill (1 mi. south) A major contributor to county and state history. Built about 1840 on Billums Creek, where the swift current made by inflow of Belts Creek would turn a water-wheel, to generate power. Mill took name from owner Benjamin Enloe, an 1837 settler who bought this property in 1849. Enloe, his son David and grandson George were known to several generations as mill operators. From this mill came lumber for the first frame courthouse in Woodville, built in 1852 while David Enloe was county sheriff. As people came from wide region to this mill, there grew up one of area's main roads (later known as Boone's Ferry Road), connecting Fort Teran with the Old Spanish Trail from Liberty to Nacogdoches and crossing present road at this point. Enloe Mill, one of 27 in Tyler County by 1857, produced essentials of life for settlers: Cornmeal for their bread and lumber for erecting homes and other buildings. This mill also ginned cotton, their "money" product. Although long known for its raw materials rather than manufactured goods, Texas gained self-reliance from early landmarks such as Enloe Mill. (1968)

Historical Marker → · 3.7 mi away

Colmesneil-Mount Zion Cemetery

1859

According to local oral tradition, African American residents of Colmesneil began using this land for burial purposes as early as the 1850s. The property remained in the hands of absentee landlords until the 1930s, when the new owner allowed burials to continue at the site. The oldest legible tombstone in the graveyard is that of Henry Mitchell, who died September 11, 1859. There are a number of unmarked graves, however, and some possibly predate Mitchell's burial. Among the more than two hundred interments here are those of prominent members of Colmesneil's black community, including ministers, doctors, teachers, railroad employees, and veterans of World War I and World War II. Known as the Colmesneil Cemetery until 1972, the graveyard was renamed Mount Zion Cemetery to avoid confusion with another Colmesneil Cemetery in the city. The new name was taken from a combination of the names of two local churches with which the cemetery historically has been associated -Mount Hope Baptist Church and Zion Hill Missionary Baptist Church. The cemetery serves as a visible reminder of the area's African American Heritage.

Historical Marker →

Gardner, Jabez Alvin

1903

J. Alvin Gardner, promoter of professional baseball, was born in Colmesneil, Texas, on April 8, 1890, the son of Jabez and Lou (Mullens) Gardner. He moved to Beaumont six years later with his parents and was educated in the public schools there. He received his first taste of baseball when he served as bat boy for the Beaumont club of the South Texas League ( see TEXAS LEAGUE ) in 1903–04. He went to work in 1907 for Gulf Production Company and remained with that company for seventeen years, including service in Tampico, Tamaulipas, Mexico, where he organized a city baseball league. Gardner lived in Shreveport from 1914 to 1918 and opened a Fort Worth office for Gulf in 1918. The following year he was transferred to Wichita Falls in charge of the company's North Texas division. He resigned in 1924 to go into business as a drilling contractor and producer with his brother, Craig T. Gardner. He was one of the first stockholders in the Wichita Falls Texas League club in 1920 and became a director in 1925. He purchased majority control of the team that year and owned and operated it until 1929, when he sold his interest. At the October meeting of the Texas League in 1929 he was elected acting vice president to conduct league affairs during president Doak Roberts's illness. When Roberts died, Gardner was elected to the presidency for a five-year term ending in 1934. He moved the league office to Dallas in November 1931. Gardner died in Dallas on June 3, 1968, survived by his wife and one daughter; he was buried in Dallas.

Tsha Handbook →

Woods, Zadock

1828

Zadock Woods, one of Stephen F. Austin 's Old Three Hundred , was born Zaduck Wood on September 18, 1773, in Brookfield Township, Massachusetts, the son of Jonathan and Keziah (Keith) Wood. By 1796 he had moved to South Woodstock, Vermont, where he married Minerva Cottle in 1797. They had six children. Woods and his family moved to the St. Charles District of Missouri Territory around 1801 and were the first White settlers granted land in that area. The town of Woodville (or Woods' Fort) was established at Troy, Missouri, and Woods's inn and tavern was its first stagecoach stopover. Woods' Fort, commanded by Lt. Zachary Taylor , was a principal defense post during the War of 1812. Woods fought with Andrew Jackson in Alabama and New Orleans. After a lead-mining venture with Moses Austin ruined him financially, Woods and his family joined Stephen F. Austin's Texas colony in 1824. His original land grant was in Matagorda County, but the family settled farther up the Colorado River in Fayette County. His fortified home in the vicinity of present West Point was called Woods' Fort (or Woods' Prairie) and was used by the colonists as a place of refuge from Indian attacks from 1828 to 1842. Woods's son Leander was killed in the battle of Velasco in 1832. Zadock mustered under Capt. Michael Goheen and Col. John H. Moore to fight in the battle of Gonzales, the battle of Concepción, and the Grass Fight near San Antonio, all in 1835. He returned home on December 3 of that year but was again involved in the Texas Revolution the next spring, when he housed a ten-member company of Tennessee volunteers under Daniel William Cloud on February 10, 1836, on their way to the Alamo . The family took part in the Runaway Scrape , fleeing before the advancing Mexican army. Minerva Woods died on March 28, 1839, and was buried in the Woods' Prairie Cemetery. In 1842 Woods and his sons Norman and Henry G. were recruited by Capt. Nicholas M. Dawson to fight with Mathew Caldwell 's forces against Mexican general Adrián Woll at Salado Creek. On September 18, 1842, Woods was killed in the Dawson Massacre . His son Henry escaped, but Norman was captured and taken to Perote Prison . Zadock Woods was buried in a mass grave by Salado Creek but was reinterred six years later at the Kreische Brewery-Monument Hill State Historic Sites in La Grange. Historical markers in Troy, Missouri, and West Point, Texas, note Woods as a significant early pioneer.

Tsha Handbook → · 9.2 mi away

Colmesneil, Texas

Music in Colmesneil

Songs About Colmesneil

Artists From Colmesneil

Rivers & Roads in Song near Colmesneil

History of Colmesneil

The Mill That Ran on Steam and Steel RoadyGoat

Two Towns, One Railroad Crossing RoadyGoat

The Conductor Who Named the Town RoadyGoat

Colmesneil, W.T., House

Colmesneil, TX

Enloe Mill

Colmesneil-Mount Zion Cemetery

Gardner, Jabez Alvin

Woods, Zadock

Everything Near Colmesneil