Sawmills Once Shaped the County's Economy

Railroads reached Montgomery County in the 1870s and 1880s. They gave loggers a way to ship pine timber out of the dense forests. The industry grew fast. By 1882, forty-five sawmills were running in the county. Lumber brought towns, jobs, and money to the whole region.

Isaac Conroe was a Houston lumberman. In 1881 he built a sawmill on Stewarts Creek. The community that grew up around that mill became today's city of Conroe. The boom did not last. By the late 1920s, most of the old-growth trees were gone and the timber industry had faded badly. The Great Depression made things worse — until the 1931 oil discovery turned the county's fortunes around.