FASTRILL

NAME: Fastrill COUNTY: Cherokee ROADS: 2WD GRID: 4 CLIMATE: Warm winter, hot summer BEST TIME TO VISIT:Winter, spring, fall

COMMENTS: Near Tyler REMAINS: The Texas Forest Service Research Center.

Because Fastrill was always a logging camp, its life as a town was only as long as there were trees to log to turn into lumber. The Southern Pine Lumber Company established Fastrill in 1922 as an operations center for its activities in Cherokee and Anderson counties. Its name was coined from the initials of three officials of the company. Because Fastrill was a company town and somewhat temporary, its homes were constructed from inexpensive planks from the company mill. Former residents remember the town as a pleasant place to live as it had a school, churches, a commissary and a post office. Population was around six hundred with about one hundred students in the four teacher school. By the late 1930s, most of the trees in the area had been cut and the company moved its people to other locations. By 1940, Fastrill was down to thirty residents and soon thereafter most of them had moved away. The Texas Forest Service now occupies the town as a research center. SUBMITTED BY: Henry Chenoweth

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