Timber shaped Hardin County long before oil arrived

When the Sabine and East Texas Railroad came through in the 1880s, it changed Hardin County. The railroad gave loggers a way to ship timber out. That opened the county's big pine forests to commercial logging. Sawmills opened around Kountze and nearby towns. The forests were thick enough to support decades of heavy cutting.

Timber is still a real industry here — not just old history. In 2003, the county produced more than 23 million cubic feet of pinewood and over 3.5 million cubic feet of hardwood. Landowners who run timber operations may qualify for a special tax break called agricultural productivity appraisal. That appraisal taxes the land on what it produces, not on what it would sell for. It can cut the property tax bill by a lot. The Handbook of Texas calls the railroad and the timber industry the foundation of the county's early growth.