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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 |
| | 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. 936-633-0399Medford
Collection of Western Art
- 300 E. Shepherd St.Museum
of East Texas -
In historic 1905 Episcopal Church. Second and Paul Streets. 936-639-4434Texas
Forestry Museum
- 1905 Atkinson Dr. 936-632-9535Cry
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 ) |
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... |
| 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 |
Lufkin
Tourist InformationLufkin/Angelina
County Chamber of Commerce
On the Loop (287) at Chestnut St.
409-634-6644.
Website: www.lufkintexas.org |
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 |
 |
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 | |
|
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 |
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. |
| | Lufkin
Street scene
Mural by Lance Hunter
TE photo |
| | Mural
at Cotton Square and starting point of Downtown Walking Tour
Mural by Lance
Hunter
TE photo | |
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