City of Lufkin
Lufkin, Angelina County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Founded 1882. Soon became a thriving sawmill community. Named for E. P. Lufkin, chief of crew that surveyed railroad through town. Has been county seat of Angelina County since 1892. Now a regional manufacturing and commerce center. Products include paper and wood products, oilfield pumps, trailers, and foundry castings. (1970)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Founded in 1882 and named for E. P. Lufkin, the railroad surveyor whose crew charted the line through town, this East Texas settlement quickly became a booming sawmill community amid the Piney Woods. It won the county seat of Angelina County in 1892 and grew into a regional hub of manufacturing and commerce. Its mills and foundries turned out paper, wood products, oilfield pumps, trailers, and castings.
Why it matters
Lufkin's growth traces how the railroad and the timber industry transformed the forests of East Texas into engines of commerce and industry.
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Related people
- · E. P. Lufkin
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Site of Martin Wagon Company
Lufkin, TX
In 1908 Daniel Webster Martin and his two sons opened a small wagon shop in Lufkin, where Martin, an inventor and designer, developed specialized wagons for the booming lumber industry. Incorporated as the Martin Wagon Company in 1910 with partner B. L. Zeagler, the business thrived until the Depression cut demand for timber products. It was later absorbed by the Lufkin Foundry and Machine Co.—renamed Lufkin Industries—and became the seed of that company's trailer division.
Calder (Cotton) Square
Lufkin, TX
From 1882 into the early 1900s, this square was the beating heart of Lufkin — crowded with cotton buyers, horse traders, band concerts, political rallies, and switching railroad trains. It held the fire station, the town standpipe, and a 1933 memorial library named for lumberman J. H. Kurth. In 1961 the square was renamed for Louis Calder, a New York friend of the Kurth family.
Equipment Typical of Early Texas Logging
Lufkin, TX
This slip-tongue, high-wheel cart, built in 1950 for the lumber firm W.T. Carter & Brother, was among the last of its kind, drawn by oxen or mules to skid logs from the forest to the railroad. Replaced by tractor-powered equipment just a year later, it stands as a relic of the labor-intensive methods that defined early East Texas logging. Preserved and marked in 1972, it recalls the industry that shaped the Piney Woods economy.
Machinery from Early East Texas Logging Railroads
Lufkin, TX
These machines powered the vast lumber operations that reshaped the East Texas Piney Woods in the early twentieth century. Steam locomotive No. 3 and a 1906 wood-burning steam loader were bought by the Carter-Kelley Lumber Company to build and supply its sawmill at Manning, hauling logs, freight, and passengers over shifting 'portable' logging railroads whose cables could drag timber hundreds of feet to the tracks. The equipment served until the 1950s, after the company had merged with W.T. Carter & Brother.