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LUFKIN, TEXAS
"Crossroads of the Piney Woods"
Angelina County
Seat, East
Texas
Intersection of Hwy 59 and 69
124 miles NE of Houston
Hwy 59 North 20 miles to Nacogdoches
Population: 32,709 (2000)
Book
Your Hotel Here & Save
Lufkin
Hotels
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The
demolished Angelina County courthouse as it appears in a downtown
Lufkin mural by Lance Hunter
Photo by John Troesser, 2002 |
Lufkin Landmarks
and Attractions
Angelina
County Courthouse
Ellen Trout
Zoo and Park
- 402 Zoo Circle off Loop 287 North. Admissions. 936-633-0399
Medford
Collection of Western Art
- 300 E. Shepherd St.
Museum of
East Texas
- In historic 1905 Episcopal Church. Second and Paul Streets. 936-639-4434
Texas Forestry
Museum
- 1905 Atkinson Dr. 936-632-9535
Cry Baby
Creek
Jack Creek, a stream west of Lufkin, has for years been known as
Cry Baby Creek, supposedly because a women and a baby died when
their auto veered off a wooden bridge and fell into the steep creek.
Annette Sawyer of Lufkin, who directed us to the bridge, said visitors
who come to the site at night claim they have heard sounds resembling
a baby crying. One visitor supposedly found the imprint of a baby’s
hand on her auto window after returning from the bridge. (From
Reply
to Readers by Bob Bowman )
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Lufkin Major
Event
Southern
Hushpuppy Cookoffs
by Bob Bowman
Held annually in September as a part of the Texas Forest Festival.
The only hushpuppy cooking contest in the U.S.
Rudolph
the red-nosed pumping unit
by Bob Bowman
If you drive through Lufkin during the holidays, be sure to take
notice of one of East Texas’ most unusual Christmas decorations.
For decades, “Rudolph the Red Nosed Pumping Unit,” the creation
of Lufkin Industries, Inc., the inventor of the balance-type oilfield
pumping unit, has helped East Texas celebrate the season...
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| Nearby
Destinations
Angelina Nationalo
Forest - 14 miles SE on US 69 to the nearest entrance
Davy Crocketr
National Forest - Hwy 94 West 11 miles
Sam Rayburn
Lake - Ask Lufkin/Angelina County Chamber of Commerce 409-634-6644
for maps
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Lufkin
Tourist Information
Lufkin/Angelina
County Chamber of Commerce
On the Loop (287) at Chestnut St.
409-634-6644. Website: www.lufkintexas.org
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One
of the many murals by Lance Hunter in Lufkin
Photo courtesy Barclay
Gibson, April 2006 |
Another
mural by Lance Hunter
Photo courtesy Barclay
Gibson, April 2006 |
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History in
a Pecan Shell
Lufkin is named after Railroad Engineer E.P. Lufkin and Angelina County
is named after an Indian girl who became an enthusiastic convert of
the Franciscan missionaries. A bronze statue across from the Museum
of East Texas honors her.
If you've ever been behind an 18 wheeler on the Interstate and have
seen the word LUFKIN on the back of the trailer, it is from our featured
town. In a convoluted evolution, the carriages that ran logs through
the saw, became carriages that extracted logs from the forest. During
WWII, the same company manufactured carriages to support howitzers,
then school buses and finally they made the trailers that we
see today.
Lufkin Industries also builds the pumping
units you see all around oil fields. The Lufkin Industries historical
relics room has one of these pumping units that was struck by a Japanese
torpedo off the coast of California in 1942. It was damaged, but was
not destroyed. How's that for proof of durability? |
W.C.
Trout, one of Lufkin Industries pioneers, bought the town it's
first horse-drawn fire engine shortly after his gasoline stove exploded
and burned his house to cinders. The Trout name is also seen at the
Zoo. Walter Trout (one of W.C. Trout's sons) named the zoo after his
mother Ellen. The zoo started in 1965 when a friend sent Walter Trout
a 500 lb. baby hippopotamus as a combination gag gift/ zoo starter
kit.
Lufkin's influence on the timber and oil industries
in Texas cannot be overstated. Lufkin along with nearby Nacogdoches
provide excellent bases for further exploration of East Texas.
The
above information on Lufkin Industries and the Trout family was taken
from Lufkin: From Sawdust to Oil by Elaine Jackson, Gulf Publishing,
1982 > |
| Lufkin:
From Sawdust to Oil |
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In the early
teens, Lukin's water source was a standpipe in Cotton Square. The
standpipe was drained in 1913 in the hope of finding the body of one
Frank Parsons who disappeared after a violent explosion that destroyed
a good portion of the railroad station. The blast must've been stronger
than they thought. Frank's body turned up in California three years
later, with Frank in it. |
Lufkin
Featured Articles
Nazis
in East Texas
by Bob Bowman
Slightly
more than sixty years ago, a German prisoner of war, known only
as “Rothammer,” carved his name on the gates of a POW camp beside
U.S. Highway 69 north of Lufkin. In doing so, he left an almost
indiscernible link between World War II and East Texas.
Remembering
a Courthouse by Bob Bowman
"[I]n
the l950s, many Texas counties threw aside history, tradition and
elegance and replaced some of our finest courthouses with modern
buildings -- many of them with little character or appeal. That
happened in my home town of Lufkin." ... more
A
Soldier's Story by Bob Bowman
Milton -- an ancestor of Jack Irish of Lufkin -- found himself involved
in the Siege of Bexar, the battle that preceded the fall of the
Alamo, and barely escaped with his life during the massacre of Texas
prisoners at Goliad.
A classic story of a simple soldier involved in the momentous events
that gave birth to Texas.
Katherine
Anne Porter in East Texas
by Bob Bowman
"In
her writings American essayist and Pulitzer Prize winner Katherine
Anne Porter often wrote of the rural South, describing places that
sounded remarkably like East Texas. There was a good reason. She
spent several years of her youth at Lufkin and was married there
in 1906...."
Courtroom
Storytellers by Bob Bowman
Because
they've seen the best and worst of humanity, lawyers are among our
best storytellers. Courtroom stories of Lufkin's Joe Tonahill and
Jasper's J.J. Collins.
Angelina
and Neches River Railroad
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Recommended Reading
The Lufkin
That Was by Bob Bowman
The
East Texas Sunday Drive Book by Bob Bowman, The Best of East
Texas Publishers
Sawdust Empire
: The Texas Lumber Industry 1830-1940 by Robert S. Maxwell and
Robert D. Baker. You'll have to go to a library for this one, since
Texas A & M Press published it in 1983.
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Lufkin
Street scene
Mural by Lance Hunter
TE photo |
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Mural
at Cotton Square and starting point of Downtown Walking Tour
Mural by Lance Hunter
TE photo |
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