City of Appleby
Nacogdoches, Nacogdoches County, Texas
Marker Inscription
CITY OF APPLEBY LOCATED NINE MILES NORTHEAST OF DOWNTOWN NACOGDOCHES, APPLEBY WAS A COMMON RURAL COMMUNITY IN EAST TEXAS. THE HISTORY OF APPLEBY PROVIDES A BACKGROUND FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE AREA NORTHEAST OF NACOGDOCHES. IN 1840, PIONEERS BEGAN TO MOVE INTO THE AREA AND A MAN NAMED HERRAN BUILT A LOG HUT AND A TAR KILN THERE. SOON, MORE PIONEER FAMILIES BEGAN TO MOVE TO THE AREA AND A LOCAL SCHOOL WAS NEEDED. APPLEBY GREW WHEN THE HOUSTON EAST AND WEST TEXAS (HE&WT) RAILWAY CAME TO THE AREA. THIS BROUGHT A SHIFT IN POPULATION AS THE CENTER OF THE COMMUNITY MOVED FROM THE SOUTH TO AN AREA ADJACENT TO THE NORTH OF THE RAILROAD. THIS MOVE WAS COMMON IN SMALL COMMUNITIES AS LIFE STARTED TO CENTER AROUND THE RAILROADS. IN 1889, W.T. SKEETERS OPENED THE FIRST STORE IN THE COMMUNITY ON THE NORTHEAST SIDE OF THE TRAIN TRACKS. IN 1889, THE HE&WT RAILWAY ACQUIRED PROPERTY FROM JOHN H. RICHARDSON, W.A. HUNT AND D.M. HANEY, WHICH WAS TO BE LAID OFF INTO A TOWN WITH A DEPOT STATION. THE COMMUNITY WAS OFFICIALLY NAMED APPLEBY AFTER JAMES APPLEBY, AUDITOR OF THE HE&WT RAILWAY. AT ITS HEIGHT, APPLEBY HAD THREE CHURCHES, COTTON GINS, FIVE GENERAL STORES, A GRIST MILL, BOARDING SCHOOL, POST OFFICE, RAILWAY DEPOT, TELEPHONE EXCHANGE, BANK, BLACKSMITH SHOP, HARDWARE STORE, BARBER SHOP AND TWO DRUG STORES. APPLEBY DEVELOPED AS A DISTRIBUTION CENTER FOR THE AGRICULTURAL ECONOMY WITH COTTON AS THE CHIEF CROP. AS OTHER COMMUNITIES DEVELOPED, APPLEBY WAS UNABLE TO COMPETE WITH LARGER TOWNS. IT IS SIGNIFICANT FOR ITS EARLY GROWTH IN THE AREA AS A FOCAL POINT FOR LUMBER AND AGRICULTURAL ENTERPRISES. (2014)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Appleby began in 1840 when pioneers like a settler named Herran built a log hut and tar kiln in the piney woods northeast of Nacogdoches. The community's fortunes shifted when the Houston East and West Texas Railway arrived in 1889, pulling the town center north to the tracks and naming it for the railway's auditor, James Appleby. At its height it boasted churches, cotton gins, general stores, a bank, and a depot, thriving as a distribution point for lumber and cotton before larger towns eclipsed it.
Why it matters
Appleby's rise and decline around the railroad mirrors the fate of countless small American communities whose lives centered on the rails and the crops they carried.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · James Appleby
- · W. T. Skeeters
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Shay Locomotive No. 2005
Nacogdoches, TX
Ephraim Shay's 1880 design, with its vertical pistons and direct gearing, gave loggers a locomotive that could crawl over the rough, twisting tram roads of the timber woods where ordinary engines failed. This 36-ton example, built by Lima in 1907, hauled logs for Texas lumber companies from forest to mill and later ran on the company-owned Moscow, Camden & San Augustine Railroad. After decades parked on a Camden siding, it was rescued in 1970 and preserved with a log car of the same era.
In Memory of Thomas F. McKinney
Nacogdoches, TX
Thomas F. McKinney (1801-1873) was a leading merchant and financier in the era of the Texas Republic. As senior partner of McKinney & Williams, whose store stood on this Nacogdoches site in the 1820s, he built the first wharf at Galveston and served as a financial advisor to the young Republic of Texas. His commercial and banking ventures helped underwrite Texas independence and early statehood.
Timpson
Timpson, TX
Timpson was born of the railroad in 1885, laid out along the new Houston, East and West Texas narrow-gauge line and named for the official who platted it. The first passenger train arrived that August, and within a year two stores separated by a pine thicket had grown into a town of a thousand, complete with a school, churches, a newspaper, banks, and factories. It thrived as an East Texas lumber, cotton, and rail hub until state highways eroded the railroads' dominance in the 1940s.
George Washington Green
Timpson, TX
George Washington Green came to Texas in 1878 with little more than the labor of his own hands, starting as a sharecropper before buying his first land in 1883. When the Houston East & West Texas Railroad pushed its line through Shelby County, Green shrewdly bought acreage along the tracks and grew into a prominent landowner running a general store and cotton gin. The Bobo community rose on his land, and in 1905 he created Green's Lake, a beloved spot for picnics, swimming, and church baptisms for decades.