Duncan's Woods

Duncan's (Duncans) Woods, also known as Duncan Woods and as Duncan's Wood, was on the nineteenth-century Beaumont and Orange Road in western Orange County. A scattered settlement was present there by 1854, when the Duncan's Woods post office was established. Though first designated as part of Jefferson County, the office was quickly switched to the new Orange County. Gilbert W. Stephenson served as its first postmaster. During the 1850s the Duncan's Woods area was considered one of the most valuable in the county, with higher land prices than for other Orange County sites. Several railroad contractors maintained camps there for workers building the Texas and New Orleans Railroad through Orange County in 1860. Yet the settlement was subsequently abandoned, and its post office was discontinued in 1866. By the mid-1980s the area was virtually treeless, with the North Port Neches and Bessie Heights oil and gas fields roughly marking the old townsite.

Adapted from the official Handbook of Texas, a state encyclopedia developed by the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). It is an authoritative source of trusted historical records.