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SACUL, TEXAS
Nacogdoches 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)
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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. |
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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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Hotels
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Pickin’
at Sacul 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 |
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