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SACUL,
TEXASNacogdoches
County, East Texas
Hwy 204 and FM 1648
21 miles NW of Nacogdoches
25 miles SE of Jacksonville
Population:
170 est. (unchanged since the 1960s) |
| | Sacul
Mall Building
Photo courtesy Barclay Gibson |
History
in a Pecan Shell
The town was born with the arrival of the Texas
and New Orleans Railroad - shortly after 1900. The name that was chosen for the
town was Lucas - for one of the original settlers. But when the application was
denied (there was already a post office named Lucas
in Collin County) the townspeople submitted the name spelled backwards. It worked.
In 1903 the Sacul post office opened and a school opened the following year.
The estimated population in 1914 was 400 and the town had everything it needed,
including no fewer than six general stores, three groceries and of course, a blacksmith,
bank and two cotton gins. |
| | Photo
courtesy Barclay Gibson |
The Great Depression reduced the population to around 250 people and the businesses
declined to 10. Increased mobility after WWII
continued to draw off people and those who had left never came back. In the mid
1960s Sacul had 170 residents but only four businesses. The old population figure
of 170 continues to appear on state maps.
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By
Bob Bowman (From "All Things Historical" Column)
"...
On the fourth Saturday night of each month, amateur pickers and singers travel
to Sacul -- a Nacogdoches County town that almost became a ghost town -- in search
of appreciative audiences.
As the sun drops behind the forests, the
sounds of bluegrass and county music fill the inside of a century-old building
that once housed the town’s mercantile store, bank, drugstore and post office.
It is almost the sole relic of what was once a small, but thriving, railroad community
in the early 1900s..." more
Finding
Dextra
(From "Bob Bowman's East Texas" Column)
"It
stands south of Sacul at the intersection of FM 1648 and County Road 898...." |
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