Bon Wier

Bon Wier is at the junction of Farm roads 1416 and 363 and U.S. Highway 190, in eastern Newton County. The town was established in 1905 as a station on the Jasper and Eastern Railway, which linked Kirbyville to the Sabine River, and was named for B. F. Bonner and R. W. Wier, manager and surgeon, respectively, of the Kirby Lumber Company (see KIRBY, JOHN HENRY). The company built Bon Wier to take advantage of the lush forests in the vicinity as part of its huge expansion program. Specifically, the town was to serve Trotti and Lee's Mill. Bon Wier opened a post office in 1906. Logging camps operated there from 1918 to 1924, again from 1927 to 1929, and finally from 1932 to 1935. The Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway acquired the 17½-mile Jasper and Eastern in 1948, before becoming the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe the same year. Several sawmills still operated in Bon Wier in 1990. Its population, estimated to be about 300 in 1936, reached an apparent high of 500 during the late 1940s before dropping slightly in the 1960s to an estimated 475, a level it maintained in 1990.

Adapted from the official Handbook of Texas, a state encyclopedia developed by the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). It is an authoritative source of trusted historical records.