Fawil
Fawil is on Farm Road 363 five miles west of Bon Wier and fifty-five miles northeast of Beaumont in central Newton County. Land grants in the area date from 1836, although dense forests and red clay made early agriculture difficult. By 1903 Tom Hughes had established a small-scale lumbering operation near what was once known as Davis Community. Hughes hauled cut trees to Belgrade, then floated them down the Sabine River to awaiting mills. Fonzo A. Wilson, a native Georgian who had come to Texas in the early 1890s, built a sawmill at the site that would eventually be called Fawil in 1905. Local lore holds that in painting a sign on his mill, Wilson had room for only his initials, F. A. , and the first three letters of his last name, Wil