Land Clearing in Angelina County, TX: Lufkin, Diboll, Hudson

Land Clearing Services Available in Angelina County

Land clearing projects here come in six shapes, and the price is posted for each.

• Forestry mulching services on pine understory: $1,200 to $2,000 an acre.
• Lot clearing for a homesite: a half-acre lot is one skid steer day, $2,800.
• Clearing brush and underbrushing under merchantable timber, by the day.
• Stump grinding: $4 per inch, $175 minimum per stump, ten or more by the day.
• Site prep and dirt work services: grubbing, rough grading and pad drainage at $160 an hour.
• Bush hogging on agricultural land and old pasture: $60 to $90 an acre, $400 minimum.

Our crews carry the equipment to handle 8-inch stems on the skid steer, and the 300-hp mulcher eats the rest. Tree removal on a single lot and storm cleanup go by the hour. We do not pour slabs, drill wells or set septic, and I can name people who do.

Residential Land Clearing for New Homesites in Lufkin, Hudson and Huntington

Angelina County permitted 139 single-family homes in 2025, up 42 percent per the Census Building Permits Survey. Permits understate the work, since tracts outside city limits need none. Most residential jobs are one to three acres of loblolly over yaupon along US 69 toward Hudson or FM 58 toward Huntington. The homeowner wants the big pines kept and the undergrowth gone. That is a skid steer day, $2,800, trees and branches mulched in place. Small residential lots pay the same day rate, because the trailer rolls either way. Site preparation on a larger tract adds pad grubbing and a drainage swale so the first storm does not cut a gully.

Forestry Mulching and Brush Clearing Across Angelina County

Forestry mulching returns the wood to the ground as a two to four inch mulch layer, and in the deep Piney Woods that layer holds moisture through August, slows erosion on the slopes toward the Angelina River, and it shades yaupon seed. On our jobs south of town the understory runs loblolly saplings, sweetgum, yaupon and privet, with pine and hardwood over 8 inches sent to the 300-hp mulcher at $4,200 a day plus transport. Selective clearing is the rule near the Angelina National Forest: open the floor, keep the sawtimber. A 15-acre tract we cleared up in Smith County read as a yaupon wall going in and came out as open pine in three days, $11,400. Expect the same here. Yaupon will overgrow the strip in four years without a bush hog pass.

Terrain, Soil and Vegetation on Angelina County Acreage

The county's soil is sandy loam over clay, and it drains fast enough that mud days are rare. US 59, now signed I-69, splits the county: west of it the ground rolls toward the Neches, east of it the pine flattens out toward Sam Rayburn Reservoir. Lots near Sam Rayburn Reservoir carry the thickest yaupon I see in Texas, often 90 percent ground cover under 60-foot loblolly. The Angelina River bottoms hold hardwood, sweetgum and FEMA-mapped floodplain. I read site conditions on the first pass: slope, standing water, stem size, and how far the mulcher is from a hard road. Woodland on 20-foot pine spacing runs 3 to 4 acres a day. A solid yaupon floor drops that to 2.

Texas A&M Forest Service, National Forest Lines and Burn Bans Before Land Clearing

No state permit covers clearing your own land in Texas, and Angelina County's rules are few. Burn bans come from the county judge or commissioners court, and TCEQ outdoor burning rules apply to piles the rest of the year. Mulching leaves no pile. The Angelina National Forest boundary is surveyed, not fenced, so I pull the plat before the crew works a tract that touches it. Texas A&M Forest Service posts the county wildfire risk rating, prescribed-burn notices and timber-sale guidance, and a 30-year loblolly stand may be worth selling before we mulch the floor. Along the river the county permits dirt work on FEMA-mapped land.

Areas We Serve in Angelina County: Lufkin, Diboll, Hudson, Huntington

Lufkin has its own page and carries most of the residential and commercial work: infill lots inside Loop 287, commercial development pads along US 59, tree clearing on a new fence line at the city's edge. Hudson, Huntington and Zavalla bring pine homesites and reservoir lots. Lufkin, TX and the surrounding areas into Nacogdoches, Polk and Trinity counties sit inside the service area, though the south end of the county can carry transport on the 300-hp machine. Of the 254 counties in Texas, this is the one with the deepest pine we clear. The East Texas page covers the region.