PALMETTO, TEXAS (San Jacinto County). Palmetto, also called Palmetto Park, is on Farm Road 946 eighty-five miles north of Houston in northern San Jacinto County. The settlement was named after the Palmetto Lumber Company, which built a sawmill at the heavily forested location in 1902. A post office was established in 1904, and a tram line eventually connected the area with facilities in adjacent Walker County. In 1908 the company, managed by R. W. Miller, acquired the Columbia Lumber Company plant at Oakhurst, two miles south of Palmetto. The company soon consolidated its operations at Oakhurst, which was also the headquarters of the Trinity Valley Railroad Company. Despite the mill's withdrawal, lumbering continued for a number of years. Palmetto, located on the northern fringes of the Sam Houston National Forest, had several residences and churches in the early 1970s.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ruth Hansbro, History of San Jacinto County (M.A. thesis, Sam Houston State Teachers College, 1940).
