The following are from the New Handbook of Texas Online

REMLIG, TEXAS. Remlig was northeast of Browndell and ninety miles north of Beaumont in extreme northeastern Jasper County. Alexander Gilmer, who owned land in both Sabine and Jasper counties, completed the mill at Remlig in 1905. A post office was established that same year. By 1907 the Gilmer Lumber Company had established 2¸ miles of tram roads in Jasper County, linking Gilmer's mill at Remlig with the logging camps in the area. With miscellaneous property totalling well over $100,000 by 1910, the Gilmer operation had become one of the largest businesses in the county. As the timber stands were cut out, however, operations slowed, and the Gilmer Lumber Company at Remlig closed in 1926. The post office discontinued service the same year, and the Remlig voting precinct was combined with that at Browndell. The old mill town does not appear on topographic or highway maps of the 1980s [see Barlow's note below].

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hamilton Pratt Easton, History of the Texas Lumbering Industry (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas, 1947). Robert Wooster

Barlow's note: Altho the Remlig townsite isn't marked, MapQuest shows an "Old Remlick [sic] Road" running east across the ATSF r-o-w to what is likely the site of old Remlig. It's very possible that this dirt road is on the old Gilmer Lbr. Co. tram r-o-w which connected their sawmill to the ATSF.

GILMER, ALEXANDER (1829-1906). Alexander Gilmer, lumberman, son of George and Jane Gilmer, was born in County Armagh, Ireland, on September 7, 1829. At age seventeen he immigrated to Georgia, where he built shipmasts for the French government before joining his brother John in building vessels independently. The Gilmers invested virtually all of their savings to construct a ship to ply the Chattahoochee, but it sank and left Alexander almost penniless. Nonetheless, he continued his trade and went to Texas sometime around 1850 on the Altha Brooks, which he had helped build. He joined the coastal trade and finally settled in Orange, where he built, repaired, and operated ships until he entered the mercantile business with his cousin George C. Gilmer. During the Civil War, Alexander ran the Union blockade several times; he was on the G. H. Bell during the battle of Sabine Pass.

Gilmer entered the lumbering business in 1866 and became one of the country's largest individual timberland owners. He built or bought sawmills and lumberyards at Orange, Velasco, Beeville, Yoakum, Cuero, Runge, Carnes City, Victoria, Remlig, and Lemonville. Although he became a millionaire, his rise to economic success was not without temporary setbacks: on four occasions fire destroyed his sawmill at Orange. After the last fire, in 1899, he rebuilt his main plant at Lemonville, under the auspices of the Lemon Lumber Company.

He married Etta Reading of Orange in 1856. She died during their first year of marriage, and Gilmer married C. C. Thomas, also of Orange, in 1867. He and his second wife had nine children, two of whom died in infancy. He moved to San Antonio for his health during his later years. Gilmer died on a business trip in New York City on July 30, 1906, leaving an estate of well over $1 million. He was buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Orange. In 1981 the Texas Historical Commission placed a marker at his grave.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: John Henry Brown, Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas (Austin: Daniell, 1880; reprod., Easley, South Carolina: Southern Historical Press, 1978). Alexander Gilmer Papers, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin. Marker Files, Texas Historical Commission, Austin. Robert Wooster

The above along with other additions and corrections of typos and spelling to the Mears oral history provided by Jimmy Barlow.

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