U.S. Forest Service in Texas
Zavalla, Angelina County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This area--heart of the Piney Woods and the East Texas forest industry--was, in 1933, cutover forests and worked-out farms. That year the Texas Legislature authorized the establishment of National Forests in this state. Today Angelina, Davy Crockett, Sabine and Sam Houston forests (the 4 National Forests in Texas) include over 658,000 acres. Under management, net growth exceeds 175,000,000 board feet with a value of over $7,000,000 yearly. In addition, forests offer extensive recreation areas. U.S. Forest Service offices have been in Lufkin since 1947. (1968)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
By 1933 the Piney Woods of East Texas were largely cutover forest and worn-out farmland, exhausted by decades of unregulated logging. That year the Texas Legislature authorized national forests in the state, leading to the Angelina, Davy Crockett, Sabine, and Sam Houston forests that today cover more than 658,000 acres. Under Forest Service management, the once-depleted timberlands regrew into a renewable industry and public recreation ground.
Why it matters
The marker records a turning point in American conservation, when scientific forestry reclaimed ravaged land and proved that timber country could be managed for both industry and public use.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Camp Nancy
Zavalla, TX
Camp Nancy began as one of the many logging camps that cut through the Piney Woods in the early 20th century, moving to the Angelina County community of Dunkin around 1918 with its offices, commissary, school, and boxcar homes for workers. Unusually long-lived for a logging camp, it also hosted a turpentine operation and pioneered new methods—replacing ox teams with cable skidders and, in 1925, undertaking Texas's first large-scale direct seeding to reforest cutover land. After logging moved on in 1933, the Civilian Conservation Corps continued reforestation before the land became part of Angelina National Forest.
Sturrock Cemetery
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When brothers John and William Sturrock left Scotland in 1830 with their siblings, they carried old-country burial customs to the banks of the Neches River in East Texas. William built a mill complex—gristmill, sawmill, and cotton gin—and set aside land for the family cemetery, where his first wife Cynthia was laid to rest in 1853, the earliest documented grave. Distinctive Scottish house tombs and false crypts mark generations of Sturrocks and their neighbors, among them children, Civil War and World War I veterans, and an enslaved man who died in 1864. Descendants still maintain the graves in their traditional east-west alignment.
Manning
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Around 1904, sawmill manager W. M. Gibbs came to the East Texas mill town of Manning to work for the Carter-Kelly Lumber Company, and he and his wife Leannah raised four children in this house. Built as an American foursquare and enlarged in 1927 with Craftsman touches, the home stayed in the family until 1942. Today it stands as one of the last tangible remnants of Manning, a company town that has largely vanished.