A Road Grew Up Around Enloe Mill

About 1840, the current on Billums Creek, strengthened by water from Belts Creek, began turning a mill wheel west of present-day Colmesneil. Corn, logs, and cotton came in. Cornmeal, lumber, and ginned cotton went out. Those jobs covered bread, buildings, and a cash crop. The mill turned creek power into the ordinary supplies nearby settlers needed.

Benjamin Enloe, who had settled in the area in 1837, bought the property in 1849. His son David and grandson George kept the mill running for later generations. Lumber from the site went into Woodville's frame courthouse built in 1852, when David Enloe was county sheriff. By 1857, Tyler County had 27 mills.

Repeated trips to Enloe Mill helped form a main route later called Boone's Ferry Road. It connected Fort Teran with the road between Liberty and Nacogdoches and crossed what is now FM 1745. The historical marker stands four miles west of Colmesneil and points one mile south toward the old mill site. The road is the lasting clue: work at one creek made a path worth repeating.