Orange County's sawmill and timber industry began with hand-operated logging operations run by pioneer settlers in the 1820s. In 1835 Robert Boothe established the area's first mechanized sawmill, and in 1841 Paine & Bendy established the first steam-driven sawmill. Cypress was the primary timber harvested until the late 1850s when the processing of native pine began. Sawmill company towns and logging camps were established throughout the county as the number of mills began to rise in the late 1870s. Increasing quantities of logs were transported by raft on the Sabine and Neches rivers to area timber operations. Many mills burned and were never rebuilt. In the early 1900s the area's sawmill and timber industry underwent a period of consolidation and a transition from reliance on water transportation to the use of the rapidly expanding railroad network. By 1909 the Miller Lind, A. E. Smith Cypress, and Lutcher & Moore's upper and lower mills dominated the area's timber industry. By 1931, however, the last of these four mills, the Lutcher & Moore upper mill, had closed. For more than 100 years the sawmill and timber industry's company towns, logging camps, and transportation system helped define Orange County life.
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