History: | Quincy Crooke operated a sawmills during the 1920s at Thomas Switch (Thoms), in Montgomery County. A San Jacinto County chattel document of January 6, 1927, notes that this mill was located at Thomas Switch on the Houston East & West Texas railroad. The document further records the mill's equipment: a steam boiler and engine, an edger, and a trimmer. The sawmill firm, with an office at Conroe, according to the Southern Lumberman's Directory of American Saw Mills and Planing Mills, 5th edition, in 1928, was cutting 25,000 feet daily , primarily crossties, and conducting logging operations on a twenty-mile tram road.
Thomas Switch was no more than a mile south of Splendora. The switch had been earlier referred to as Thoms Switch. A Rand McNally map of about 1925 records that both “Splendora” and “Thomas” share the depot of the Houston East and West Texas. |