Votaw

Votaw is at the intersection of Farm roads 787 and 2798, fifty miles northwest of Beaumont in extreme northwestern Hardin County. When the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway began construction on a line from Cleveland to Silsbee, the heavily wooded area of northern Hardin County was opened up for intensive lumbering. The little community that grew up around one new sawmill was named for Clark M. Votaw, assistant land commissioner of the Kirby Lumber Company and vice president of the Santa Fe Townsite Company, which laid out the town lots. A post office was established there in 1901; the town lots appear in tax records the following year. Votaw's population has remained between 100 and 200 since 1925. The timber around the community supported the area's early residents; as late as 1947 a logging camp and planing mill operated nearby, and the town shipped pulpwood, logs, staves, poles, and railroad ties. Votaw has since become a center for local agriculture. Nearby deposits of oil, discovered in 1958, continued to produce in 1984, further supplementing the local economy. In 1990 the population was 160. The population remained unchanged in 2000.