Elmina
Elmina was on U.S. Highway 75 some twelve miles southeast of Huntsville
in Walker County. It is believed that the town was named for the El Mina
Masonic Temple in Galveston. The settlement started out in 1870 as a
sawmill owned by Kit Oliphant, a lumberman of East Texas. In 1902 the
Oliphant mill was sold to the Walker County Lumber Company, a branch of
the Foster Lumber Company. After this, the mill expanded significantly,
and by the mid-1920s Elmina had more than 200 residents. A post office
opened there in 1903 and closed sometime after 1930. An early map of the
settlement shows seventy-four company-owned houses, a post office,
mill, hotel, drugstore, company store, movie house, church, storehouse,
schoolhouse, cemetery, and spur-line railroad. Also, hundreds of people
lived in camps in forested areas around the mill. The mill used more
than twenty-five miles of tram railroads, known as the Elmina and
Eastern Transportation Company; many of the railroad beds were still
visible half a century later. The Elmina mill also provided electricity
from 6:00 P.M. to 10:00 P.M. for local residents. A company physician,
Dr. Henry Robertson, lived at the mill. The community had an eight-grade
school and an "all-religion" Protestant church that was shared mainly
by Baptists and Methodists. The Polish cemetery on the eastern side of
the settlement was the burial ground used by St. Joseph's Catholic
Church in New Waverly. The cemetery's name was later changed to Elmina
Cemetery; in it are buried some Italians as well as Poles who worked in
the Elmina mill. By 1930 available timber nearby had been consumed, and
the Great Depression
was in full swing. On September 13, 1931, a fire raged through the
millsite and destroyed the main mill. The fire, combined with worsening
economic conditions, finished the town by 1935. Its structures were
either torn down or sold and removed from the site. TSHA
Texas State Historical Association
https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/elmina-tx
New Waverly Community News and Events
https://newwaverlycommunitynewsandevents.wordpress.com/2019/02/26/elmina-lost-in-the-ashes
ttarchive.com
https://ttarchive.com/library/Articles/Elmina-Ghost-Town-Walker-County_Oliphint.html
East Texas History
https://easttexashistory.org/files/show/2849
Study the Past
https://studythepast.com/ghostwebsite/walkercountyghosttowns.htm
Wordpress
https://newwaverlycommunitynewsandevents.wordpress.com/2019/02/26/elmina-lost-in-the-ashes/
The Portal to Texas History
https://texashistory.unt.edu/explore/locations/p04082/
Texas Almanac
https://www.texasalmanac.com/places/elmina
Excerpt from;
Early History Of Walker County, Texas
by John L. Baldwin
Chapter VII
Elmina
Elmina -- named for the El Mina Temple of Galveston - was located about 13
miles south of Huntsville and one mile north of New Waverly, on the
Missouri-Pacific Railroad. Today it is one of the ghost towns of Walker
County, with only the vault of an old saw mill which once stood there still
remaining to be seen. It is hard to realize that here a few short years
ago was a thriving saw mill town, second only to Huntsville in population among
the towns of Walker County.
The town had its beginning in 1870 when Oliphant's mill was erected
there. The first residences were those of mill hands, but soon others
began to come to establish businesses. the Oliphant mill was small and had
limited capacity, which kept the town from growing a great deal for the first
few years of its existence. the erection of the Walker County Lumber
Company in later years marked the beginning of the real growth of the
community. The company operated with a personnel of some 150 employees,
and these workmen with their families brought the total population of Elmina to
700 persons. All of the workmen's houses were constructed by the lumber company
and rented to the workers. there were about 180 residences and buildings
combined when the town was at its peak. Besides the houses there was a
large mill commissary, a drug store, and a big two-story hotel. (Mrs.
Ewing Bush, Huntsville, Mrs. Bush's father, R. Miller was once the manager of
the Walker County Lumber Company of Elmina)
The workmen at the mill were given time cards each week to show the amount of
time for which they were due to be paid. These tune cards were returned on
payday to exchange for cash. If, in the meantime, the workers had
purchased merchandise or owed rent, the cards were punched to indicate the
amount that should be deducted from the pay. T. Frank Ferguson was the
time keeper for the mill and did the card punching when the rent was due.
The Walker County Lumber Company discontinued its operation in 1934 because
of the fact that timber in the vicinity was becoming scarce, making it necessary
to haul the lumber over longer distances and causing the mill to operate at a
loss. One by one the houses were sold and moved away from the community
until the once busy town ceased to exist.