Lindale

Lindale is on the Missouri Pacific Railroad and U.S. Highway 69 ten miles north of Tyler in northwestern Smith County. The site, originally part of the Thomas Burbridge survey, was settled as early as 1873, when the Lyndale post office opened with John M. Davis as postmaster. The next year the spelling was changed to Lindale, and in 1875 the settlement became a station on the new International-Great Northern Railroad. Five years later the population had reached 300. By 1884 residents had begun shipping cotton and fruit, and the businesses included seven general stores, two groceries, a hotel, two drugstores, a gristmill, and a cotton gin, as well as the services of a gunsmith, a physician, and an undertaker. There were also two churches and a school. Citizens numbered 500 in 1892, when seven flour mills, the East Texas Canning Factory, and a high school had all been constructed. The J. S. Ogburn and Company Canning Factory, specializing in peaches, was established in 1895. On November 1, 1898, the Lindale City school system was established. Two years later fruit and truck farming had become the major sources of income.

In 1902 the population reached 1,200, making Lindale the third largest city in the county. The public school was a large, white, frame building with a bell chapel. A Methodist church and two Baptist churches were functioning. The largest store belonged to Ogburn and Huggins; others were Minton's Racket (general) Store, the T. J. Morris and Company drugstore, the J. A. Thetford and Company general store, and Pruitt and Cawthon's grocery. There was also a gin and mill belonging to J. E. Vickery. Dr. Wall was the town dentist, and Dr. J. T. Crook was the local physician. School enrollment, under superintendent Oliver Prince Norman, had reached 310, resulting in the construction of new buildings and an increase in staff. That year local women led a successful campaign to make the sale of alcoholic beverages illegal in Lindale.