Old Upshur County Courthouse
A Photographic Tour of Upshur
County History is also available.
Reflections of Upshur County, Texas
by
Mary Laschinger Kirby
- The record of life in Upshur County divides into three broad categories:
prehistoric, historic without visual representation, and historic with photographic
and other visual records. With the aid of hundreds of interested Upshur
County residents, the descendants of Upshur County families, and collectors
of history, this pictorial representation of life in the county reflects
that third phase of its history.
The prehistoric era extended from creation to the expulsion of the
native Americans, especially the Caddoes, and the Cherokees from northeast
Texas in 1839. Fragmentary information in the records of Nacogdoches County,
the state tax records, and a few other locations give a scant idea of the
movement of persons in the area. For example, the first resident, John
Cotton, actually lived in what is now Gregg County, and the first permanent
resident of modern Upshur, Issac Moody, died prior to the creation of the
new county.
Upshur County carved out of Nacogdoches County.
The historic era begins after the creation of the Republic
of Texas as deeds and other documents begin to record movements in what
was northern Nacogdoches and western Harrison county. Then, with statehood,
the first legislature of the state of Texas created the County of Upshur
on April 27, 1846, with the requirement it be named for the former Secretary
of State, Abel P. Upshur, who initiated the diplomatic activities
which resulted in the annexation of Texas.
The county was organized that fall when District Judge 0. M. Roberts, the
future governor, held court at the home of William H. Hart in December,
1846. Elias Bishop served as the district clerk, Gillington C. Patillo,
sheriff, and Hart as county clerk.
Gilmer established. Two years later, the forerunner of the
County Commissioners acquired the land for the site of Gilmer on August
21, 1848, and proceed to raise funds for the county by selling blocks of
Gilmer by auction on Aug. 22. As required, the county seat town was named
for Thomas W. Gilmer, the secretary of the navy who died in the same naval
gun explosion in 1844 which killed Upshur.
For the next fifty years, the pioneers of the county compiled a written
record as they carved their n farms out of the primordial forests, fought
in the War between the States, drained the swampy areas for use as rich
farmland, grew their sugar cane and corn, killed the bears and panthers,
let their hogs run wild, and at the close of Reconstruction developed the
systems of tenant farming and sharecropping which replaced slavery as the
economic arrangement between the farm worker and the land owner.
Gregg and Camp Counties carved out. Before the end of Reconstruction,
Upshur County lost half it size when the creation of Gregg County to the
southeast and Camp County to the north decreased the area of the county.
As a result, in 1880, the county reflected its first loss in population
10,266 from 12,039 in 1870. During the Eighties, the Cotton Belt Route,
the St. Louis and Southwestern Railroad crossed the county from north to
south, creating Pritchett, Midway, and Bettie and the people of Chilton
moved to Big Sandy where the Texas-Pacific crossed the southern part of
the county.
By 1890, as a logging boom hit the western section of the county, with as
many as 90 mills operating in the boom areas of Rosewood, Rhonesboro, and
to the east, at Stamps and Grace. Again the population of the county was
growing, reaching 12,695 by 1890 and 16,266 by 1900.
With this growth arrived Gilmer's first resident photographer, John M.
Hays, in 1897. Local citizens began to use the new boxes from Eastman
Kodak as young people spent their Sunday afternoons "Kodaking"
along the railroad, and later J. E. Dow started recording life at Center
Point, Pinnacle, and Big Sandy. With the entry into the twentieth century,
the visual history of Upshur County increases dramatically.
As the new century began, two fundamental pioneer attitudes began to shift.
The settlers who recalled the Panic of 1837 in the United States and shared
President Andrew Jackson's distrust of bankers, banned banking in the Republic
of Texas, created the concept of homestead rights, and sought to protect
individuals from the loss of their homes and their "tools of trade."
Additionally, only those who could muster the tuition could attend an academy,
for the public school concept only developed in the 1840s and after.
Banks and public education. The first shift came with the
creation of the First National Bank in 1899 and two years later the Farmers
and Merchants National Bank (now the Gilmer National). By 1909, the state
banking law passed and state banks appeared in every community. Only Security
State in Ore City and Big Sandy State survived the run on banks in the Great
Depression.
Additionally, public education came to Upshur County, both with the creation
in 1902 of the Gilmer Independent School District, and with the establishment
of numerous consolidated schools.
In 1915, the Board of Trade, the precursor of the Chamber of Commerce, successfully
promoted a road bond issue to help farmers get their produce to market.
In the 1920s the popularity of automobiles and trucks dramatically increased
and by the end of that decade the square in the center of Gilmer was paved
in bricks.
By 1906, the Church of Jesus Christ of Letter-Day Saints had begun the Kelsey
stake in the western portions of the county, and by the '20s had sent missionaries
to Dallas, Longview, and other locations in the South.
Especially in the sandy lands of the county, various farmers were diversifying
from cotton and corn with watermelons and sweet potatoes. Unfortunately,
an invasion of the sweet potato weevil led to the local crop being quarantined.
The next great economic shift for the county came May 6,1931, when the Mudge
Oil Co. well, the J. D. Richardson No. 1, tested at 35,000 barrels per day,
and Upshur County joined the list of counties reached by the East Texas
Oil Field.
By the end of the decade, several rural school districts had consolidated
with Gladewater, Union Grove, or East Mountain who could afford buses to
transport the children to and from school. The population of the county
had grown to 26,178, and Gilmer had reached 3,138.
Yamboree. In 1935, the people of Upshur County celebrated
the lifting of the sweet potato quarantine with the creation of the East
Texas Yamboree. That first year only Union Grove had a marching band, and
Gilmer had a town band. The next year, both East Mountain and Gilmer had
added marching bands to their schools, starting a tradition of excellence
which continues to this day. The children of those who learned their music
in Singing Schools could now learn to play an instrument at school, so that
in the 1990s all of the seven remaining school districts have uniformed
marching bands.
Following World War II, cotton shifted west and cattle came east, with county
agent T. B. Lewis helping prepare the transition as businessmen sponsored
dairy calves for 4-H members, and the agent taught how to develop improved
pastures with crimson clover and coastal Bermuda.
Before the war, Texas 154 and the paved U. S, 271 connected Gilmer with
Marshall, Gladewater, and Pittsburg. Shortly after the war the predecessor
of Texas 300 reached Longview, and Texas 154 extended west to Quitman. The
same roads which aided the farmer and his wife in getting to town on Saturday
allowed his children to leave for jobs in the cities. While Gilmer grew
to 4,114 by 1950, the county population dropped by 20.5% to 20,822.
By the mid-1950s a new highway, Texas 155, aided many of the former cotton
growers to commute past the northeast corner of the county to work at Lone
Star Steel and the last cotton gin was preparing to close.
The census of 1960, 19,793 souls, almost equaled the total for 1910, with
5,001 attending school and another 5,926 counted as members of the labor
force. Whites accounted for 73.4 % of the population, blacks 25.88%, and
only 116 were listed as other.
Over the next thirty years some of those youths who departed during the
Drought of the 50a returned as retirees living in their rural air conditioned
homes, while others returned to family business. Still others came as refugees
from the crowded city freeways, who sought to raise their children in smaller
communities while they commuted to Long-view, Tyler, and other surrounding
locales.
As a result, despite mid-decade losses in population due to the shutdown
of the blast furnaces at Lone Star Steel and lingering Oilpatch Recession
problems, for the first time in 1990 the county population exceeded 30,000.
While only 12.4% of the 31,370 people are Blacks, 2% are Hispanics, and
1.31% are native American, Asian, or other.
In 1993, Upshur County was added to the Longview standard metropolitan statistical
area and thus is listed as urban, while most of the population lives outside
of incorporated areas.
As we stand poised on the brink of a new century, we can only wonder at
the changes which will occur to our progeny which will make our photographs
and videos as quaint to them as the ones we treasure in this book.
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©Jere L. Jackson,
Stephen F. Austin State University, P.O. Box 6134, Nacogdoches, Texas 75962
USA
E-mail: CETS@sfasu.edu
URL: http://144.96.211.125/CETS.html
LAST MODIFIED: April 23, 1996