Southland Paper Mills, Inc., was the first plant in Texas to make newsprint from southern yellow pine. It was the child of the imagination and scientific work of Ernest L. Kurth and Charles Herty. Financing requirements were large. In return for stock in the proposed paper mill, the company received 47,000 acres of timberland located in the counties of Angelina, Houston, Polk, and Trinity from Southern Pine Lumber Company. Organized in 1939 and operating by January 1940, Southland Paper Mills produced 50,000 tons of newsprint during its first year of production.
Under Kurth's direction, the mill expanded its output from fifty to one hundred thousand tons, in 1948, according to The Gulf Coast Lumberman. In 1952, Southland bought the Texas Long Leaf Lumber mills at New Willard and Trinity, which had been Thompson and Tucker sawmills originally. Champion had twenty percent of the action. The fourth newsprint machine was added in January, 1959, which increased production to 300,000 tons annually. By 1965, the Lufkin plant had 1000 jobs, with a $7,000,000 payroll. Production was 6,000 rolls weekly of newsprint and brown wrapping paper. It was the only Texas newsprint mill of the time. In 1975, the company had acquired a seventh newsprint machine, which would could produce 200,000 tons annually.
In 1977, Southland merged with St. Regis, which merged with Champion International in 1984. In 1990, it produced 8% of the nation's print.