Fastrill Texas, an old logging camp in Cherokee County. (original) (raw)
Some time in the distant future, if Dallas has its way, a new reservoir could be built on the Neches River in Cherokee and Anderson County.
If the proposal ever becomes reality, the lake would inundate a landmark in the history of the forest products history--an old logging camp known as Fastrill.
There were hundreds of logging camps in early East Texas, but few achieved the homely nobility of Fastrill, which was established in 1922 as a logging base for Diboll�s Southern Pine Lumber Company.
A Texas State Historical Marker at Fastrill
Photo courtesy Bob Bowman
The town got its name from a combination of three names: FA from F.F. Farrington, a former Diboll postmaster; STR from P.H. Strauss, who was in charge of Southern Pine�s logging camps; and ILL from Will Hill, the company�s woods foreman.
The town stood near a bend in the Neches River about 15 miles west of Alto. Of all the Southern Pine logging camps, Fastrill is best-remembered by the company�s old timers. At its peak the community had a four-teacher school, two churches, a post office, commissary store, boarding house, a voting precinct and a population approaching 600.
�Fastrill was as pretty a logging camp as a person went into,� said Wesley Ashworth, a carpenter and repairman for Southern Pine. �It had wide, long streets, sycamore trees up and down the streets, and stood on a sandy hill, a beautiful place.�
Southern Pine operated dozens of logging camps--sometimes called �front camps,�--in places like Alceda, White City, Buff City, Lindsey Springs, Walkerton, Neff, Hull, Gilbert, Buggerville, Gipson, and Apple Springs.
�I suppose Fastrill is remembered so well because it was a big camp, the most permanent camp, and was in existence longer than any other camp the company had,� said Vina Wells, whose family moved there from White City in 1922.
Today, little is left of Fastrill, but some of the town�s former residents return regularly to its site to wander through the forest, dig up old railroad spikes, and read a Texas State Historical Marker placed there years ago.
April 4, 2009 Column.
A weekly column syndicated in 70 East Texas newspapers
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