Lufkin

Lufkin, the county seat of Angelina County, is at the intersection of U.S. highways 59 and 69, a few miles northwest of the geographic center of the county in the heart of the Piney Woods of East Texas. It was founded in 1882 as a stop on the Houston, East and West Texas Railway, when the line built from Houston to Shreveport, Louisiana, and named for Capt. Abraham P. Lufkin, a Galveston cotton merchant and city councilman, who was a close friend of HE&WT president Paul Bremond. Lufkin grew both because of its proximity to the railroad and because of the extensive lumber industry in the surrounding area. The history of Lufkin may be divided into three principal eras. The first, which centered on the arrival of the railroad and the progress it precipitated, occurred between 1882 and 1890. The second, marked by a timber boom that produced hundreds of sawmills in the Piney Woods, took place between 1890 and 1920. The third, often called the town's "golden era of expansion," occurred between 1938 and 1945, when industrial expansion produced thousands of new jobs and widespread community growth.

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.