W. E. and C. W. Howeth were Nacogdoches logging contractors. In November 1902, they bought a logging outfit from H. L. Gray: twenty-four mules and fourteen sets of harnesses, and four log wagons. The following July, the brothers contracted with Keith Lumber Company to cut, load, and carry the latter's sawtimber from its holdings in Nacogdoches County to Beaumont. In return, Keith Lumber Company agreed to provide a locomotive and construct a tram bed into the Keith Lumber pineries.
A newspaper article in June 1904 reported that La Cerda station at Keith's Switch was located two miles southeast of the Turner & Nabers mill along the Texas & New Orleans railroad, a total of nine miles from Nacogdoches. Sawtimber was harvested by a tram road into the pineries from the main road, where it was loaded onto cars and shipped on the railroad to Voth, near Pine Island Bayou, more than a hundred miles, to be milled.