4-C Mill

July 22, 2023

For the past month or so we have been “cooped up” in the house dealing with the Three Ws again. Unable to bear another weekend sitting in front of the TV watching YouTube videos all day long, we decided to make an unplanned trip and just see where it would lead. Long story short, we ended up at the Moosehead Cafe in Crockett, Texas, Houston County.

Houston County has a lot to offer: beautiful scenery, lots of Texas history, and friendly people. We’ve enjoyed exploring the area but were running out of ideas of what else to go see there.

When we went to pay the bill at the Moosehead Cafe, though, we had the good fortune to speak with its owner, Joni Clonts, former mayor of Crockett. Ms. Clonts showed us a map of the county and mentioned that one of her ancestors had worked at the 4-C Mill, which was located near Ratcliff on the eastern side of the county in the Davy Crockett National Forest. She also mentioned that there used to be a tramway in that area.

Well, that’s all it took. Old East Texas sawmills and railroads are a particular interest of mine. So, we paid our bill, thanked Ms. Clonts for the information and prepared for a short adventure to find the old tramway and explore part of the forest.

Topozone is a great website for finding points of interest and identifying lesser-known locations and geological features. The Topo Map will often show the routes of old railroad grades. It was easy to identify the location of the tramway using this map, so we set off for Ratcliff and Forest Service Road 543 in the national forest.

But before we get into the drive and the pictures, let’s talk about the 4-C Mill!

The Louisiana and Texas Lumber Company, a subsidiary of the Central Coal & Coke Company of Kansas City, Missouri, purchased 120,000 acres of virgin timberland in the vicinity of Ratcliff beginning in the late 1800s. In 1902, they built the 4-C Mill, named for the parent company, just west of the present location of Ratcliff. It is generally considered to have been the largest sawmill west of the Mississippi River but was without a doubt the largest in Texas at the time.

When the mill started operations, the populations of the tiny communities of Ratcliff and nearby Kennard exploded. The mill employed over 1,000 individuals. The economies of both towns were dominated by the mill.

But the 4-C was a “company town.” Many followed the company as it built new mills. They lived separately from the local residents. The company community was largely self-contained. Employees were paid with company “money” in the form of tokens that could be used to purchase goods and services from the stores within the company town. Although it was possible to exchange the tokens for real currency, this was made complicated and inconvenient to the workers due to a low exchange rate and the fact that the company built a high fence around its property to discourage workers from leaving the compound.

To most of us, this sort of feudal society seems backwards and oppressive, but many of these people had worked in company towns their whole lives, just like their ancestors. So, they probably did not know anything different. Plus, they got to enjoy benefits that were not available to many of the locals, including electricity, decent housing, and safety provided by the company security forces. Not that it was always a pleasant experience–there were occasional strikes and riots, and sometimes violence.

The benefits provided to the towns in which sawmills operated were questionable. Local farmers made a little bit of money selling their property or access to their timber, and also benefited by having their land cleared for farming. However, it is arguable that this was offset by the limited economic exchange with the mills and the environmental damage that they caused.

Like owners of many sawmills of the time, the Louisiana and Texas Lumber Company engaged in the practice of “cut out and get out.” The supply of timber was exhausted in 1917, and the 4-C mill and its tramway were dismantled by 1920. So, as quickly as the mill arrived, it was gone.

The area logged out by the 4-C was reforested by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s and is now part of the Davy Crockett National Forest. The 4-C log pond is now part of the Ratcliff Lake Recreation Area.

If you are interested in learning more about the 4-C Mill and other East Texas sawmills during the golden age of the Texas lumber industry, then I highly recommend you check out Sawdust Empire, by Robert S. Maxwell and Robert D. Baker, and Nameless Towns, by Thad Sitton and James H. Conrad. Also, go visit the Texas Transportation Archive, which is run by Lester Haines and Murry Hammond. This site has a lot of great photos and other resources related to Texas railroads and sawmills.

So, finally, we get to our adventure…

Route: 4-C Mill

We turned onto Forest Service Road 543, located in Ratcliff along TX-7. The road starts off in a residential area, but after a couple of sharp turns it enters the unpopulated forest. Not far from the entrance, the abandoned tramway roadbed crosses FSR 543.

Abandoned railroads are not that uncommon in East Texas. Most were used by short-lived sawmills to transport cut timber to the log ponds, and to deliver lumber to nearby railroad mainlines. When the mills would shut down, the rails and ties were removed. This railroad ran between the 4-C mill and the Houston East and West Texas Railway (“The Rabbit”) in Diboll.

So far, this is only our second excursion into the Davy Crockett National Forest. Our first trip was the infamous (to us) Horseflies drive between Groveton and Kennard. Thankfully, there were no horseflies on this trip; but, it was very hot.

We turned right onto County Road 4720. This road is very sandy, and we kicked up a lot of dust behind us, despite driving slowly.

Antioch Cemetery is located in a bend in CR 4720. This is a beautiful spot in the forest–very quiet and peaceful. As the historical marker implies, many members of old, local families are buried here. The graves of unknown individuals, likely workers from the 4-C mill, are marked. There are, sadly, a lot of children buried here who died in the early part of the 20th century.

The heat cut our visit short. I was clear to the back of the cemetery and Kristi was somewhere in the middle when I decided that I’d had a enough, but we were both moving so slowly that I actually caught up with Kristi before we reached the gate.

Getting back into the cool, cool comfort of our air-conditioned vehicle, we continued down CR 4720.

CR 4720 ended at CR 4700. We turned left, heading east. Unlike the roads we had been down since entering the forest, this area was fairly well populated–“civilization,” I called it. There are lots of pretty homes and pastures. Several homes have signs posted that list their name and the year they settled in the area–probably original settlers. Many of these families have relatives buried in Antioch Cemetery.

After driving a bit, CR 4700 ended on CR 4740. We turned right, heading south.

CR 4740 crosses Cochino Bayou. The bayou is the source of the old 4-C mill log pond, now known as Ratcliff Lake. A log pond is not a tank. Cochino Bayou is also called Hog Creek. “Cochino” is Spanish for “pig,” but is also used to mean “filthy” or “dirty.” Given the existence of feral hogs in the area, either name seems appropriate.

Not far past the bayou we crossed over Forest Service Road 527, then ended our dirt road adventure on FM 357.

I was feeling pretty tired. Even though the official adventure portion of our drive was fairly short, we drove nearly 140 miles altogether. Finding new places to explore is taking us further and further away from home base. Soon, these little day trips are going to occupy ENTIRE days, if not overnight stays. But, we have a good deal more of the Davy Crockett National Forest yet to explore.