Charles S. Keltys and James A. Ewing built the original mill and tram road at Keltys, which Joseph H. Kurth bought in March, 1888, for $7,303.50. Located on the Cotton Belt railway, the mill initially employed about 120 men and supported a community of 500. Needing capital, Kurth took as partners Eli Wiener and Simon Henderson about 1890. Angelina County Lumber was incorporated in September 1890, and added a planing mill that year. By 1893, the daily capacity was 40,000 feet. A fire devastated the mill in 1906. It was rebuilt with a single band and a Dixie circular saw. Wiener, Kurth, and Henderson expanded their lumber interests severally and jointly throughout East Texas and Louisiana. San Augustine County Lumber Company was organized in 1915 by them in order to harvest a tract of land bought from Kirby Lumber Company. The owners attempted to make the former business the wholesale company by selling the industrial plant to San Augustine County Lumber Company for $150,000 in 1916 its plant in Keltys and using the latter as the sales agent. Later federal income tax troubles led to a chartered name change back to Angelina County Lumber Company. The mill was rebuilt in 1939, after another fire, as a double band mill with a capacity of 10,000 board feet per hour. A small hardwood mill was added by 1948, designed to cut ties for the A&NR railroad, the company tap-line. The hardwood mill could cut 15,000 feet daily. The facility was employing more than 250 workers when the sawmill first then the planing mill closed between December 1965 and March 1966. The facility and 168,000 acres were sold to Owens-Illinois in March 1966.