First Christian Church of Lufkin
Lufkin, Angelina County, Texas
Marker Inscription
A Christian church was organized in Angelina County about 1884 in Homer, the county seat. When the railroad line from Houston to Shreveport was built about 5 miles from Homer, the town of Lufkin was built around the depot. Many citizens of Homer moved to Lufkin, including a majority of the church members. The Lufkin Christian Church was formally organized by the Rev. R. E. Jackson in 1894. Visiting ministers served the congregation for many years. Worship services were held in local halls until the school building was established as the first permanent home for the church. In 1903 the school was donated by Judge E. J. Mantooth and later remodeled into a church edifice. Two residences were purchased in 1912 in downtown Lufkin and converted into a place of worship and a parsonage, but were later torn down. In 1920 the church building constructed by the congregation was dedicated. The congregation bought six acres of land in 1949 at South Raguet and South First streets and new church buildings were completed in June 1954. Several additions were made to house the growing programs of the church. The First Christian Church of Lufkin continues to serve the community as it has for more than 100 years. (1996)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When a rail line from Houston to Shreveport bypassed the old county seat of Homer around 1884, the new town of Lufkin sprang up at the depot—and many of Homer's residents, church members among them, simply moved. The Lufkin Christian Church was formally organized in 1894 and worshiped in halls and a converted schoolhouse before building homes of its own, growing alongside the town for more than a century.
Why it matters
This congregation's migration shows how the coming of the railroad could uproot an entire community, shifting the center of local life from an old county seat to a new depot town.
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Related people
- · R. E. Jackson
- · E. J. Mantooth
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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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.
Site of Martin Wagon Company
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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.
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On a March evening in 1913, an explosion tore apart the Houston, East & West Texas Railroad depot at Lufkin, severing the town's lifeline of trade and travel. A railroad employee was presumed killed, declared legally dead, and his insurance paid to his stepmother. Three years later the very much alive man was hauled back to town to stand trial for insurance fraud, a charge on which he was ultimately acquitted.
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