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CORRIGAN,
TEXASPolk County,
East Texas
Highways 59 and 287
FM 352 and FM 942
6 miles N or Moscow
25 miles N of Livingston
100 miles N of
Houston
Population: 1,887 est. (2007) 1,764 (2000) |
| | Corrigan's
old water tower
Photo Courtesy Ken
Rudine, June 2005 |
History
in a Pecan Shell
Although settled earlier, Corrigan didn't get a
jump start until the arrival of the Houston, East and West Texas Railway in 1881.
Pat Corrigan, conductor on the first train to arrive was given the honor of having
the town named after him.
The Trinity and Sabine Railway arrived the
following year. Having two railroads were a boon to area lumber companies, and
in the early 1880s there were as many as seventeen sawmills operating in the vicinity.
A post office was granted in 1883. By 1900, Corrigan's population was a respectable
461 residents.
Corrigan had a bottling works, stone quarries, sand pits,
and of course, cotton. This diversified economy
buoyed Corrigan through the hard times when the mills shut down. After the timber
was nearly exhausted, particleboard plants appeared after WWII.
The population
reached just over 1,400 in the early 1950s, but declined to less than a thousand
by 1960. It has since increased to over 1,700.
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| | Corrigan's
new water tower
Photo Courtesy Ken
Rudine, June 2005 | |
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