Manning

Manning, a lumber town in the Neches River bottomlands of southeastern Angelina County, flourished between 1903 and 1934. In 1863 a Dr. W. W. Manning constructed a small sawmill at the site, which lies nine miles south of Huntington, near Farm Road 844. In 1885 Manning built one of the first two steam sawmills in Angelina County, on Lindsey Lake south of Homer. Manning, who was born in 1820 in Monroe, Louisiana, brought the talents of a druggist, physician, merchant, and industrialist to the development of Angelina County.

W. T. Carter and G. A. Kelley organized the Carter-Kelley Lumber Company in 1903, built a new sawmill near the site of Manning's first mill, and named the site Manning. Their mill, built for yellow pine, had the most modern machinery in its time and cut all sizes of lumber. It had a capacity of thirty-four million board feet a year and employed 300 people. Timber was brought to the mill from Angelina, Tyler, Polk, and Jasper counties. In 1907 the Shreveport, Houston, and Gulf Railroad (known as "Shove Hard and Grunt") was built from Manning to Huntington to connect the sawmill town with the Cotton Belt and the Texas and New Orleans railroads. The Carter-Kelley Company, like many other Angelina County sawmills, issued scrip instead of currency and served as a bank for its employees' so-called "Manning checks." Manning got a post office in 1906 with Charles C. Gribble as postmaster.