LAURELIA, TEXAS. Laurelia was on the Houston, East and West Texas Railway south of Corrigan ninety-five miles north of Houston in central Polk County. It was founded after Judge Claiborne Holshausen built a sawmill there in 1880 and was named for the laurel growths in the area. The mill went through several changes in ownership but remained an important center for the timber trade until the sawmill plant, then owned by the Davidson-Ingram Lumber Company, burned in 1910. The post office at Laurelia, which had opened in 1903, discontinued operations after the sawmill burned. Laurelia, now a ghost town, was listed on railroad maps as late as 1918.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: A Pictorial History of Polk County, Texas, 1846–1910 (Livingston, Texas: Polk County Bicentennial Commission, 1976; rev. ed. 1978).
