Manning

Manning workers were paid in checks usable only at the company store. At its peak the Carter-Kelley mill cut 34 million board feet of yellow pine a year with about 300 employees, and the Shreveport, Houston and Gulf Railroad built a line from Huntington to Manning in 1907. Population reached 700 by 1910 and about 1,000, Black and white, by 1925. The schools were a white school with seven teachers and a Black school with two. The East Texas History Project dates the mill fire to 1934, and the houses were sold to a Dallas-area businessman.

What the plaque says

Manning The community of Manning grew up around the operations of the Carter-Kelley Lumber Company, established here about 1906. The town was named for D. W. W. Manning (b. 1820) who started a sawmill here in 1867. By 1929 Manning had a population of 1300 and included a movie theater, a school, stores, churches, a post office, and a railroad depot. The town began to decline after a fire destroyed the mill in the mid-1930s, and operations were moved to Camden (30 mi. W). The townsite is now marked by homes, sawmill ruins, and a cemetery. (1980, 1995) Supplemental plaque: This house and what was left of Manning after the mill fire of 1936 were bought by Morgan M. Flournoy. Here he and his wife Ruby raised five children.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Martin Dies, Jr. State Park — 28 mi
  A 705-acre state park on Steinhagen Reservoir at the meeting of the Neches and Angelina rivers, with about 14 miles of paddling trails through sloughs and more than 200 campsites.

More markers nearby

• Site of the Town of Jonesville — 8.1 mi
• Beulah School — 8.2 mi
• Pine Grove Missionary Baptist Church — 9.2 mi
• Lindsey Springs Logging Camp — 11 mi