TRYON, TEXAS (Hardin County). Tryon was on the Sabine and East Texas Railroad between Olive and Plank thirty-two miles north of Beaumont in northern Hardin County. The rail line, completed through the area in 1881 and acquired soon afterwards by the Texas and New Orleans system, opened the virgin woodlands of Hardin County to lumbermen. Houstonian J. M. Tryon, for whom the temporary camp in the heart of the longleaf pine district was named, built a sawmill on the railroad shortly after the tracks had been laid. Operated by experienced lumberman B. S. Fitzgerald, the mill at Tryon could cut a maximum of 20,000 board feet per day. Tryon Mills controlled the plant by 1889. The numerous sawmills along the line often remained open only briefly, however, and the Tryon post office, established in 1888, discontinued operations in 1893. Tryon was nonetheless still listed as a stop on railroad maps as late as 1918.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: W. T. Block, ed., Emerald of the Neches: The Chronicles of Beaumont from Reconstruction to Spindletop (Nederland, Texas: Nederland Publishing, 1980).
