| History: | In February 1920, R. A. Myers contracted Lufkin Foundry & Machinery for machinery and improvements to its two-story lumber mill at Honey Island. It was purchased by Kirby Lumber Company after a previous fire destroyed the dry kilns and sheds. Rebuilt by Kirby, the mill operated until 1954, when its operations were transferred to the new Silsbee plant.
Camp Seale was a major Kirby Lumber logging operation in Polk County from 1934 to 1948. Several daily logging trains trammed over twenty miles from the spurs around Camp Seale, carrying an average daily total of 150,000 feet, to the lumber plant at Honey Island.
Although some of the loggers, like Jim Whiteside, travelled daily to and from Camp Seale on the train, Kirby Lumber maintained about fifty portable tenant houses at the Camp. Families lived there as well, for the company provided church, a commissary and school buildings at Camp Seale. These homes were known as “shotgun” houses because Kirby Lumber carpenters could bolt two or more small rooms together. When Camp Seale closed in 1948, the rooms were unbolted and shipped over the tram to Honey Island. |