BABER, TEXAS. Baber was a sawmill town four miles south of Huntington in east central Angelina County. It was established by S. F. Carter about 1906 on the Texas and New Orleans Railroad and was at first the site of a small mill. Later, J. P. Carter, who had been associated with a mill at Emporia, constructed a larger plant at Baber with a daily capacity of 25,000 to 50,000 board feet. The second Carter owned substantial timberland between Huntington and Zavala, and this acreage sustained the mill at Baber for quite a few years. Baber, named for a lumberman, had its first postmaster, James Burns, in 1907. By 1915 the town had a population of 100 and at least three businesses. But the timber had been exhausted, and the mill was liquidated. In 1915 local mail delivery was transferred to Huntington.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Angelina County Historical Survey Committee, Land of the Little Angel: A History of Angelina County, Texas, ed. Bob Bowman (Lufkin, Texas: Lufkin Printing, 1976). Archie Birdsong Mathews, The Economic Development of Angelina County (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1952).

Megan Biesele