Silsbee

Silsbee is at the junction of U.S. Highway 96, State Highway 327, and Farm roads 92 and 418, twenty miles north of Beaumont in eastern Hardin County. Its origins can be traced to the Gulf, Beaumont and Kansas City Railway, which reached the site in 1894. A project of John Henry Kirby , the railroad was intended to open East Texas forest lands to the timber industry. The Texas Pine Land Association, also managed by Kirby, established a logging camp and then a sawmill at the site of Silsbee after the railroad was completed. The growing community was first called Mill Town but was soon renamed Silsbee in recognition of one of Kirby's East Coast partners, Nathan D. Silsbee.