Pittsburg

Pittsburg, the county seat of Camp County, is at the junctions of U.S. Highway 271 and State Highway 11 and of the Louisiana and Arkansas and the St. Louis Southwestern railways, sixty miles southwest of Texarkana in the central portion of the county. It is the largest and the oldest town in the county. There are six major lakes within eighteen miles of Pittsburg that are reputed to be among the best bass-fishing lakes in Texas. Caddo and Cherokee Indians resided in the area during the early 1800s, but they had for the most part abandoned the area before settlers began arriving from Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama in the late 1830s. A community began to emerge in the 1850s, and when the post office was established in 1855 it was named Pittsburgh, in honor of the family of William Harrison Pitts, said to have arrived from Warren County, Georgia, the year before. The Pittsburg Gazette was founded in 1884 and has been in continuous operation since that time. In 1893 the spelling of the post office name was changed to Pittsburg. As the part of Upshur County near Big Cypress Creek became more heavily populated, Pittsburg grew in size and importance. The roads between there and Gilmer, the county seat and major market center of Upshur County, were of poor quality, and Big Cypress Creek was often difficult to cross during rainy seasons. Thus by 1860 Pittsburg became the major market center for the future Camp County. The town had doctors, lawyers, a watchmaker, a brick mason, two shoemakers, two blacksmiths, and several merchants, carpenters, and wagonmakers, as well as a Methodist church. By 1870 Pittsburg served as the post office for 2,400 people.

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.