Lufkin grew from a railroad stop into an East Texas lumber and paper hub

Lufkin was established in 1882 as a railroad town on the Houston, East and West Texas Railway and was named for Abraham P. Lufkin, a Galveston cotton merchant. The railroad made it practical to haul timber out of the dense Piney Woods, and by the 1890s and early 1900s, the county had at least 17 sawmills. The Angelina County Lumber Company and Southern Pine Lumber Company were major early operations.

In 1939, Ernest Kurth established Southland Paper Mills on the east edge of Lufkin. It was a landmark industrial achievement: pine had long been thought unsuitable for newsprint because rosin gummed up machinery, but chemist Charles Holmes Herty developed a process to neutralize it. Southland began producing newsprint in 1940 and supplied Texas newspapers for decades. The mill later operated under various owners before eventually closing.

The Texas Forestry Museum at 1905 Atkinson Drive, Lufkin (treetexas.com) documents this full arc of East Texas forest history — from early logging and sawmill towns through paper manufacturing and modern forestry. Admission is free. The museum is open Monday–Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.