| Historicial Development: | J. H. Kurth, who later formed Angelina County Lumber Company, owned a sawmill just east of Corrigan in the 1880s. Robert S. Maxwell, citing an August 10, 1964, interview with Simon W. Henderson, Jr., recorded in Sawdust Empire that the mill was “south of Corrigan, on the Houston, East & West Texas Railway,” at a point called Kurth Station. According to sources of the time, however, Kurth Station was east of Corrigan, on the Trinity & Sabine Railroad. The mill was probably built in 1882, about the time the Trinity and Sabine Railroad passed through Corrigan. Kurth Station and the Kurth & Company sawmill there appeared in the 1884 Rand, McNally and Company's lumber mill directory. In March 1888, Kurth purchased Charles Kelty's mill in Angelina County, and moved his operations there.
Another source wrote in 1926 that Kurth owned his sawmill at Kurth Station from 1881 to 1884 before moving on to co-own a planing mill near Corrigan with Sam Allen.
The Kurth Station post office was at Corrigan.
Sam Allen was one of the great early sawmillers in Polk County. See other entries on Sam Allen in the East Texas Sawmill Data Base.
During the building of the Sabine & Trinity, it was claimed that small sawmills and large tie camps were located every few miles in every direction. |