Editing Houston County, Texas (section)

==History==
[[Image:Houston County (TX) Museum IMG 1010.JPG|200px|left|thumb|The Houston County Museum is located in a restored railroad depot south of Crockett.]]
The Four C Mill operated in Houston County during the first two decades of the 20th century. R. M. Keith, agent of the Central Coal and Coke Company in [[Kansas City, Missouri]], began buying virgin timber in the fall of 1899. Lumber to construct the new mill was cut by a small sawmill purchased in early 1901 from J. H. Ratcliff. Keith organized the Louisiana and Texas Lumber Company to operate the Four C. The mill was producing 300,000 [[board feet]] of lumber daily by June 1902. [[Ratcliff Lake Recreation Area|Ratcliff Lake]], now a [[United States Department of Interior]] recreational site, was the millpond for the Four C. The Texas Southeastern Railroad laid track from [[Lufkin, Texas|Lufkin]] to haul out the lumber. The town of [[Ratcliff, Texas|Ratcliff]] was separated from the Four C by a fence, built to discourage the mill workers from spending their money outside the [[company town]]. The 120,000 acres were in time exhausted, and by 1920, the mill shut down.<ref name=THC>Texas Historical Commission, Historic Marker, Houston County, Texas, east of Kennard, Texas</ref>