Wiergate

Robert Wier wanted his mill at Burkeville, according to the Handbook of Texas, but landowners there disliked the rough sawmill workers it would bring, so he built about four miles west. The mill had a reason to exist: heirs of Henry Jacob Lutcher and G. Bedell Moore held an 86,000-acre tract of virgin longleaf pine in northern Newton, Jasper and Sabine counties and judged hauling logs to existing mills too costly. Wier laid the 15-mile Gulf and Northern Railroad to Newton. In 1943 he finished the timber job, dismantled the mill and abandoned the railroad.

What the plaque says

Wiergate A deal, struck in 1917 between Houston lumberman Robert W. Wier and the Lutcher and Moore Lumber Company, owners of vast tracts of virgin yellow pine in this region, led to the construction here of one of East Texas' largest sawmill complexes. The Wier Long Leaf Lumber Company built a mill capable of producing 40 million board feet of lumber annually, and a town consisting of about 550 residences,several church buildings, schoolhouses, a hotel, railroad depot, post office, movie theater, drugstore, commissary, and various other shops by 1922. Housing in the town, named Wiergate after founder Robert Wier,was segregated by race and ethnicity. A central hill was restricted to Anglos, another to African Americans, and the third to Hispanics. Lumber of different sizes including beams as large as 40-50 feet in length and 30 X 30 inches square were shipped to market daily on the Gulf and Northern Railroad. After 25 years of continuous operation the mill was closed on Dec. 31. 1942, and the town was sold to an Arkansas salvage company. Nevertheless, the original mill was replaced by a new electric mill and Wiergate, unlike most East Texas lumber "company towns" of its era, continued to exist as a community.

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Round Table Inn — 2.3 mi
• First Courthouse of Newton County — 2.5 mi
• Shankleville Community — 2.6 mi
• Rev. Henry Stephenson — 4.8 mi