Abandoned Aldridge Saw Mill - Texas

[Music] do good afternoon everyone it is steven and andrea from pin in the atlas look at this backdrop real thick there's water over there looks like the bayou so with a landscape like this you know we got to be way out in the middle of nowhere and we must have something good otherwise why would we be out here so what are we doing out here and what are we going to go see we are deep in the heart of the angelina forest in eastern texas and we are in search of the aldridge sawmill or the remains of the aldridge sawmill let's explore [Music] so a gentleman by the name of hal aldridge built this sawmill back in 1903 and it used to produce 125 000 board feet of lumber every single day and employed 500 people now at that time there was housing a hotel a post office blacksmith even a train depot and two schools with shops and saloons unfortunately the only remains we could find were that of the sawmill let's take a look now it's time to wander inside just take let's some of these windows here let's see if i can get a better still got uh the sun's right in that one of course there all the wood framing around is still in the window that's nice to see let me see a lot of the these vines growing up the wall and all the plant life growing up along the roof line this makes it that much more aesthetically pleasing doesn't it one thing that doesn't obviously because all this graffiti just takes away from the building in our opinion and i won't try to focus on it too much a lot of it's misspelled which just goes to show the level of intelligence required to pick up a spray paint can [Music] look at this it's a shame the roof's collapsed let's see all these concrete buildings way out here there's a lot of moisture in this area because they can feel it in the ground so a lot of the wood there was a fire here that went through and destroyed a lot of the buildings [Music] but with concrete it can withstand quite a bit wow that's just gorgeous looking isn't it so we'll take a peek inside this building here i like the little alleyway here between them [Music] you can see some of the structural steel visible [Music] and that roof [Music] they did make this build to last see if we can walk around the front side [Music] see more of the the moss growing up and on the walls i hope that ends up taking over and covering up a lot of this paint work here look at that like the iv coming down the sides of the buildings i love that if you can hear the crunching of all the leaves on the ground it is winter time so i'm not quite sure what would have been in this building but look at the look at the size of the bolts embedded in the cement here and that's a that's pretty big [Music] so let's go walk around there's another building you can just see through that window [Music] i'll go see what that one is back there [Music] [Music] [Music] getting away from the camera gonna wave at the camera [Music] [Music] wow now this building here since it's still really intact very cool in here [Music] sorry the video quality is going to be a little bit different in here because it's so dark look at the height on these ceilings you can see some of the the cement finish is crumbling down off the roof line there so there is one more piece that we found outside not sure what the building is like andrea mentioned there was a train depot here so we haven't been able to really locate that take a look at this is that a hot home it doesn't have a doorway watch that huge spider [Laughter] not funny [Music] [Music] all right here are the last remains that we spotted when we were scouting around it's like we mentioned earlier not sure if this could be the train depot or if this was another part of the mill but it's kind of spooky almost look like gravestones don't they alright i've scouted out ahead to make sure there are no spiders so i could continue filming in peace with my heart rate at normal now it makes sense that this could be the train depot uh one i mean see here these pillars they've got the embeds in there the bolts still in there coming through so this could have been like a raised platform and also because of its location fairly close to the mill we just haven't been able to find out where the train tracks could have been you know there's a a lot of a lot of nature that's taken back over this place was abandoned quite a while ago so remnants that aren't strong made of cement i mean even even those are crumbling away so this is the end of the building [Music] that's it and then here [Music] and see how close the mill is so if there are more pieces out here underneath the growth they're very well hidden now here right in front of the mill site look at this lovely little pond i say it's winter time so could you imagine what it looked like when all these plants had leaves on them it was green all right everyone that's going to wrap up this video i was expecting there to be a little bit more to this because this ultra it was a town i know this the sawmill those remains are amazing i just thought there would be um a little bit more to explore yeah considering there were schools and saloons and shops and everything but there were two fires one in 1911 and a second one in 1914 i believe so and you never know people might have just taken the bricks dismantled their houses and took them with them yeah if it's been abandoned for over 100 years yeah it was abandoned in 1920 yeah and nature likes to take over so um that and the graffiti artists yeah on that note get out there get exploring go put another pin in the atlas and we will see you on our next adventure bye [Music] do [Music] you