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History in a Pecan
Shell
Settled
in the mid 1820s, it was first known as Bevil’s Settlement (after John
Bevil). In 1835 it joined a host of other southern states naming the county after
William Jasper, of American Revolution fame.
In 1844 the town of Jasper became the county seat.
A post office was granted
in 1846 when the population was only 40. In the next ten years the population
reached 400.
A Confederate quartermaster depot was located here during
the Civil War and following the war, several educational institutions opened before
they were absorbed in a public school system in 1908.
A weekly newspaper,
the Jasper News-boy, has been published continuously since 1865. The 1870 population
declined from the 400 residents of 1858 to to 360. By the mid 1880s it had grown
to 1,000. By the mid 1890s it reported 1,200 residents.
The arrival of
the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad made Jasper an important lumber exporter.
The population grew from 1,500 in the mid 1920s to 6,500 in the late 1960s.
Jasper reached a new high during the 1990m census with 7,267 residents and over
200 businesses.. By 2000 the population surpassed 8,000 with over 700 businesses.
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Jasper Landmarks/Attractions
Jasper
County CourthouseJasper
County MuseumEast
Texas Reginal Arts Center - 364 N Austin. 409-384-2404Jasper'
Fireman's Museum - 205 Water St. 409-383-6168
Area Destinations
Angelina National
Forest - Entrance Hwy 63 NW 13 miles Martin
Dies, Jr. State Park
RR 4 Box 274 Jasper, Texas 75951
(409) 384-5231
Siecke State
Forest - US 96, 25 miles S
Lakes
Toledo
Bend
B.
A. Steinhagen
Sam
Rayburn
Book
Hotel Here > Jasper
Hotels |
Belle-Jimm
Hotel Historical Marker
Photo
courtesy Gerald
Massey, May 2009 |
Jasper Chronicles
Jasper
and Newton Counties, Beyond the Sabine
Remembering
two doctors by Bob Bowman
When doctors W.D. Thames of Lufkin and Joe Dickerson
of Jasper died recently, East Texas lost two unique physicians--men who made house
calls, kept up with the babies they delivered, and cared for whole families....Courtroom
Storytellers by Bob Bowman
Because they've seen the best and worst of
humanity, lawyers are among our best storytellers. Courtroom stories of Jasper's
Joe Tonahill and Lufkin's J.J. Collins... Joe
Tonahill of Jasper by Bob Bowman
When Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President
John F. Kennedy in 1963, an East Texas lawyer soon found himself thrust into history.
A
well-used phone book by Bob Bowman
I’ve received a telephone book adorned
with telephone numbers from the 1980’s scribbled all over the cover, the back,
and dozens of inside pages. It came from Joel Towers of Lufkin with a note that
it was his mother’s telephone book from Jasper... |
| | Post
Office Mural in Jasper
TE photo |
1940s
Jasper County map showing Jasper and ghost towns
Courtesy Texas General Land
Office |
| Jasper
Tourist Information Jasper
Chamber of Commerce
246 E Milam Jasper, Texas 75951
(409) 384-2762
Jasper
Hotels >
Book Here |
Jasper
County Historical Marker
Photo
courtesy Gerald
Massey, May 2009 |
Historical
Marker Text:
Jasper County, C. S. A.
Communication,
transportation, supply and military center in Civil War Texas. Voted 315 to 25
in favor of secession. Crossed by Texas troops in the 1862-64 Louisiana campaigns
to prevent split of the South and invasion of Texas. Confederate Army ran Houston-to-Alexandria,
La., military horseback courier route through here. In last years of the war,
Abel Adams, a local 14-year-old, rode this in a high lope, for Gen. John B. Magruder,
commander of the Department of Texas. Beef was driven to troops in the Old South
by way of 1823 trail across the county.
Had a Confederate Quartermaster
Depot and 9-county headquarters, 2nd Brigade, Texas State Troops, under Gen. W.
M. Neyland, local citizen.
County men in service on various war fronts
of the South included Co. G, 13th Texas Cavalry; Co. C, 25th Texas Cavalry, Dismounted;
Co. E, 27th Texas Cavalry, in Whitfield's Legion.
In 1865, as survivors
were returning home, Union occupation troops bivouacked in the Jasper Town Square.
Commander was Gen. George Custer, later to go down in history for his "last stand"
at the Little Big Horn, 1876. Driving her beautiful horse and carriage, his young
bride called on the Jasper ladies. |
Jasper
Texas Forum JASPER,
William. c.1750-1779. Rev. hero. S.C. Of obscure parentage, but apparently
from the vicinity of Georgetown, S. C., he enlisted on 7 July '75 in Francis Marion's
Co. for service in Wm. Moultrie's Regt. During the defense of Charleston in 1776
he braved enemy artillery to replace the flag that had been shot from the parapet
of Ft. Sullivan (later Ft. Moultrie). Given a sword by Gov. Rutledge, he declined
a commission on the ground of being ignorant. As a roving scout under Moultrie,
Marion and Lincoln, successively, he gathered valuable information of British
activities. He was killed while planting the colors of the 2nd S.C. on the Spring
Hill redoubt in the assault on Savannah, 9 Oct. '79. An impressive monument has
been erected at Savannah in his honor, and one of the redoubts at Ft. Moultrie
was named "Jasper Battery." (James W. Patton in Dictionary of American Biography,
quoted in Boatner's Encyclopedia of the American Revolution.)
I have
found that it is much easier to find information on Sgt. Jasper than it is on
Sgt. John Newton. - Regards, R. Keith Young Fairfax, VA
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Hotel Here > Jasper
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