R. W. Miller, biography c. 1926
[New Encyclopedia of Texas]
 
 
 
 
  Source: Davis, Ellis A. and Edwin H. Grobe, eds. New Encyclopedia of Texas. Dallas, Tex. Texas Development Bureau, 1926. Vol. II, p. 2003.
 
     
     
 

R. W. MILLER, well known lumberman of Texas, has recently come to Huntsville, where he is taking a leading part in industrial affairs. Mr. Miller is vice president and manager of the Huntsville Cotton Oil Company, having bought stock in this enterprise and taken over its management the first of May, 1924. The Huntsville Cotton Oil Company was established in 1902, at that time being a forty thousand dollar corporation. In 1919 the capital was increased to one hundred thousand dollars, and the plant in its present state of development represents an investment of more than three hundred thousand dollars, in lands, buildings and machinery. The cotton oil mill has a capacity of forty tons per day, and in addition to the operation of the mill an ice plant, with a daily capacity of fifteen tons, and a light and power plant, supplying electric light and power to Huntsville, and also a pumping station, pumping water for the city of Huntsville, is operated by the company. A force of forty employees is maintained, and the plants occupy an industrial site of fourteen acres of ground. Officers in addition to Mr. Miller, the vice president and manager, are: T. C. Gibbs, president; Sam McKinney, secretary, and Gabe Smither, treasurer.

R. W. Miller was born in Cass County, Texas, the second of June, 1875, the son of T. H. and Jane (Bush) Miller. The father, a native of Alabama, came to Texas after serving through the Civil War, and was a farmer in Cass County for years, then living at Gilmer, Texas, until his death. Mrs. Miller, a native of Kentucky, came to Texas with her parents shortly after the close of the Civil War. Mr. Miller attended the schools of Cass County, and as a young man began work in the saw mills of that county, later going to Upshur County, and still later to San Jacinto and Walker Counties, where he continued in this line. In Walker County he spent thirteen years at Elmina as manager of the Walker County Lumber Company, directing the operation of one of the largest saw mills in the state. The first of May, 1924, Mr. Miller came to Huntsville to take over the management of the Huntsville Cotton Oil Company, in which he had an interest, and has been active here since that time. Mr. Miller is also vice president of the New Waverly State Bank, at New Waverly, and is a director of the Trout Creek Lumber Company at Kirbyville, Texas; also vice president of the Ford-Jarvis Lumber Company of Houston.

R. M. Miller was married at Gilmer, Texas, the twenty-eighth of December, 1902, to Miss Ida Chandler, a native of Upshur County. They have six children, Irene, Thomas Ford, Josephine, R. W. Jr., Dorothy Louise and Marjorie. Mr. Miller is a Blue Lodge Mason, Commandery and Chapter at Huntsville, and a member of Arabia Temple Shrine at Houston, and belongs to the Huntsville Rotary Club.

 
     
     
     
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