Lemonville, TX

Lemonville, also known as Lemon, was on what is now Farm Road 1130 twenty-two miles northeast of Beaumont in northern Orange County. The site was opened for development with the construction of the Texarkana and Fort Smith Railway in 1898. The Lemon town plat was filed in 1901, and the Lemon Lumber Company, owned and managed by lumber magnate Alexander Gilmer, began purchasing town lots from William Manuel shortly thereafter. A post office was opened the following year. The sawmills at Lemonville were operated by a variety of owners, including the Miller-Link and Peavy-Moore lumber companies. The population reached an estimated 300. However, as locally available timber was cut out and market prices fell, the sawmills faced increasing difficulties, and eventually their operators consolidated with larger mills or shut down. In 1928 the Lemon post office was discontinued, and the site was eventually abandoned.