Odelia

Odelia was located in western Jefferson County on the Gulf and Interstate Railway between Hamshire and Fannett. A sawmill was established at the site in 1903 by Edgar Caruthers and W. A. Q. Miller, and the community was named after Mr. Caruthers's wife, Mary Odelia. The mill, known as the Interstate Lumber Company, employed forty workers and consisted of a planing mill, a tram road, and workers' houses. The Nona Mills Company purchased Odelia in 1906, and a post office was established the same year. Under the direction of the Nona Mills Company, the Odelia mill became the site of a temporary boomtown, with offices, a commissary, and a school added to the sawmill complex. However, local timber began to play out, and financial troubles beset the owners about 1910. A fire destroyed the sawmill in 1912 and led to the permanent closing of the Odelia plant. Odelia is not listed by the Geographic Names Information System and did not appear on a detailed Corps of Engineers map of the area made in 1928.