| Historicial Development: | American Lumberman noted on March 17, 1906, that the Emporia Lumber Company sawmill plant burned to the ground. The commissary was saved. Losses came to $50,000 with some insurance. Several box cars were also destroyed. Instead of rebuilding a new mill at Emporia, a new mill would be built at Press, a new station several miles from Nacogdoches. The Carter Lumber Company of J. Presley Carter had several sawmills and communities in Nacogdoches after 1900. Known as Press, he and his brother Samuel Fain Carter were already operating the Emporia Lumber Company in Angelina County and the Sunset Lumber Company at Doucette in Tyler County. Railroad maps show that a station identified as Press was located about five miles south of Nacogdoches on the Houston East & West Texas, in close proximity to the the sawmill centers of LaNana and Lola.
County registers record that the company owned property in the immediate area. E. A. Blount and June Harris, noted sawtimber and stumpage factors, sold a small portion of of the N. de la Cerda grant in 1906, large enough for a station as well as a sawmill plant. In 1908, Blount sold Carter land in the adjacent Isaih Kirby grant. If a sawmill was not built, then Carter was probably harvesting sawtimber at Press and shipping it to his mills at Sacul, Mahl, and Mayo.
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