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LUFKIN,
TEXAS
"Crossroads
of the Piney Woods" Angelina
County Seat, East Texas
Intersection of Hwy 59 and 69
124 miles NE of Houston
Hwy 59 North 20 miles to Nacogdoches
Population: 32,709 (2000) |
One
of the many murals by Lance Hunter in Lufkin
Photo courtesy Barclay
Gibson, April 2006 |
Another
mural by Lance Hunter
Photo courtesy Barclay
Gibson, April 2006 |
Lufkin
Landmarks and Attractions Angelina
County Courthouse Texas
Forestry Museum - 1905 Atkinson Dr. 936-632-9535
"Built in 1976
to preserve the history and heritage of the forests and forest products industry,
recently underwent an extensive renovation at Lufkin. As a result, the museum
offers visitors new perspectives of Texas’ earliest industry, sawmilling, and
one of its newest, the manufacture of paper." - Bob
BowmanMedford
Collection of Western Art - 300 E. Shepherd St.Museum
of East Texas - In historic 1905 Episcopal Church. Second and Paul Streets.
936-639-4434Ellen
Trout Zoo and Park - 402 Zoo Circle off Loop 287 North. Admissions. 936-633-0399Cry
Baby Creek
Jack Creek, a stream west of Lufkin, has
for years been known as Cry Baby Creek, supposedly because a women and a baby
died when their auto veered off a wooden bridge and fell into the steep creek.
Annette Sawyer of Lufkin, who directed us to the bridge, said visitors who come
to the site at night claim they have heard sounds resembling a baby crying. One
visitor supposedly found the imprint of a baby’s hand on her auto window after
returning from the bridge. (From Reply
to Readers by Bob Bowman ) |
Lufkin
Major Events Southern
Hushpuppy Cookoffs
by Bob Bowman
Held annually in September as a part of the Texas Forest Festival.
The only hushpuppy cooking contest in the U.S.Rudolph
the red-nosed pumping unit
by Bob Bowman
If you drive through Lufkin during the holidays, be sure to take notice of one
of East Texas’ most unusual Christmas decorations. For decades, “Rudolph the Red
Nosed Pumping Unit,” the creation of Lufkin Industries, Inc., the inventor of
the balance-type oilfield pumping unit, has helped East Texas celebrate the season...
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Lufkin
Nearby Destinations
Angelina
National Forest
- 14 miles SE on US 69 to the nearest entrance Davy
Crockett National Forest
- Hwy 94 West 11 miles Sam
Rayburn Lake - Ask
Lufkin/Angelina County Chamber of Commerce 409-634-6644 for mapsJonesville
- Second county seat of Angelina CountyDepression
Era Roadside Park
A roadside park beside U.S. 287 a few miles before entering
Woodville.
See Depression
Parks by Bob Bowman ("All Things Historical" column)
Lufkin
Tourist Information
Lufkin/Angelina
County Chamber of Commerce
On the Loop (287) at Chestnut St.
409-634-6644.
Website: www.lufkintexas.org
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History
in a Pecan Shell
Lufkin is named after Railroad Engineer E.P.
Lufkin and Angelina County is named after an Indian girl who became an enthusiastic
convert of the Franciscan missionaries. A bronze statue across from the Museum
of East Texas honors her.
If you've ever been behind an 18 wheeler on
the Interstate and have seen the word LUFKIN on the back of the trailer, it is
from our featured town. In a convoluted evolution, the carriages that ran logs
through the saw, became carriages that extracted logs from the forest. During
WWII, the same company
manufactured carriages to support howitzers, then school buses and finally they
made the trailers that we see today.
Lufkin Industries also
builds the pumping
units you see all around oil fields. The Lufkin Industries historical relics
room has one of these pumping units that was struck by a Japanese torpedo off
the coast of California in 1942. It was damaged, but was not destroyed. How's
that for proof of durability? |
W.C.
Trout, one of Lufkin Industries pioneers, bought the town it's first horse-drawn
fire engine shortly after his gasoline stove exploded and burned his house to
cinders. The Trout name is also seen at the Zoo. Walter Trout (one of W.C. Trout's
sons) named the zoo after his mother Ellen. The zoo started in 1965 when a friend
sent Walter Trout a 500 lb. baby hippopotamus as a combination gag gift/ zoo starter
kit.
Lufkin's influence on the timber and oil industries
in Texas cannot be overstated. Lufkin along with nearby Nacogdoches
provide excellent bases for further exploration of East Texas.
The
above information on Lufkin Industries and the Trout family was taken from Lufkin:
From Sawdust to Oil by Elaine Jackson, Gulf Publishing, 1982 > |
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In the early teens, Lukin's
water source was a standpipe in Cotton Square. The standpipe was drained in 1913
in the hope of finding the body of one Frank Parsons who disappeared after a violent
explosion that destroyed a good portion of the railroad station. The blast must've
been stronger than they thought. Frank's body turned up in California three years
later, with Frank in it. |
Lufkin
Chronicles - History, Stories & People How
a town was born by Bob Bowman
"...shed some light on the old story
of how Lufkin became the county seat. "Nazis
in East Texas by Bob Bowman
Slightly more than sixty years ago, a
German prisoner of war, known only as “Rothammer,” carved his name on the gates
of a POW camp beside U.S. Highway 69 north of Lufkin. In doing so, he left an
almost indiscernible link between World War II and East Texas.Remembering
a Courthouse by Bob Bowman
"[I]n the l950s, many Texas counties
threw aside history, tradition and elegance and replaced some of our finest courthouses
with modern buildings -- many of them with little character or appeal. That happened
in my home town of Lufkin." ... A
Soldier's Story by Bob Bowman
Milton -- an ancestor of Jack Irish
of Lufkin -- found himself involved in the Siege of Bexar, the battle that preceded
the fall of the Alamo, and barely escaped with his life during the massacre of
Texas prisoners at Goliad.
A classic story of a simple soldier involved in
the momentous events that gave birth to Texas. Katherine
Anne Porter in East Texas by Bob Bowman
"In her writings American
essayist and Pulitzer Prize winner Katherine Anne Porter often wrote of the rural
South, describing places that sounded remarkably like East Texas. There was a
good reason. She spent several years of her youth at Lufkin and was married there
in 1906...."Remembering
two doctors by Bob Bowman
When doctors W.D. Thames of Lufkin and Joe
Dickerson of Jasper died recently, East Texas lost two unique physicians--men
who made house calls, kept up with the babies they delivered, and cared for whole
families....Courtroom
Storytellers by Bob Bowman
Because they've seen the best and worst
of humanity, lawyers are among our best storytellers. Courtroom stories of Lufkin's
Joe Tonahill and Jasper's J.J. Collins. Angelina
and Neches River Railroad The
Bravest Man by Bob Bowman
Those who lived in Lufkin during the Depression
years knew Homer Garrison, Sr., as a kindly, genteel man who gave away pennies
to children and felt he had cheated them “because I always got a two-bit smile.”
Somehow, it wasn’t the image you expected for the bravest man in the world, which
is the way his son, Homer Garrison, Jr., a man once considered as J. Edgar Hoover’s
replacement, felt about his father.Making
history by Bob Bowman
In August of 1945, when the United States dropped
the first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Charlie Kimble of Lufkin was
part of the American landing party that toured Japan’s shambles and helped free
4,500 Korean prisoners of war...
The mayor and the lion
by Bob Bowman
Years ago, when Pitser Garrison was the mayor of Lufkin, a
young African lion was born at Ellen Trout Zoo.
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| | Lufkin
Street scene
Mural by Lance Hunter
TE photo |
| | Mural
at Cotton Square and starting point of Downtown Walking Tour
Mural by Lance
Hunter
TE photo |
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Texas
Escapes,
in its purpose to preserve historic, endangered and vanishing Texas, asks that
anyone wishing to share their local history and vintage/historic photos of their
town, please contact
us. |
Recommended
Reading
The
Lufkin That Was by Bob Bowman
The
East Texas Sunday Drive Book by Bob Bowman, The Best of East Texas Publishers
Sawdust
Empire : The Texas Lumber Industry 1830-1940 by Robert S. Maxwell and Robert D.
Baker. |
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