Town of Corrigan
Corrigan, Polk County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Located in piney woods of east Texas. Founded about 1860 by landowner and settler James B. Hendry, who donated property for original townsite. When the Texas & New Orleans Railroad was built through area in the early 1880s, a prosperous timber-based economy developed here. The town was named for T. & N. O. official, Pat Corrigan. In 1884 the Trinity & Sabine Timber Company platted town, and soon a hotel, blacksmith shop, several stores, and a 10-pin (bowling) alley appeared. Today lumber, ranching, and farming undergird economy.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Tucked in the piney woods of East Texas, Corrigan began about 1860 when settler James B. Hendry donated land for a townsite. The coming of the Texas & New Orleans Railroad in the early 1880s sparked a timber boom, and the town — named for railroad official Pat Corrigan — soon boasted a hotel, stores, a blacksmith shop, and even a ten-pin bowling alley. Lumber, ranching, and farming still anchor the local economy.
Why it matters
Corrigan's story is the classic East Texas pattern: a quiet settlement transformed into a prosperous town the moment the railroad opened its forests to market.
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Related people
- · James B. Hendry
- · Pat Corrigan
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Abbott Springs Meadows Cemetery
Corrigan, TX
This pioneer graveyard served the vanished community of Asia, which grew up along Paces Creek after Samuel Crissman received a land headright in 1835. Settlers like the Meadows, Snell, and Standley families made it home, and James Standley's blacksmith and cabinet shops formed its nucleus. When the Trinity and Sabine Railway and a Houston sawmill arrived in the mid-1880s, loggers and mill workers poured in — until the timber was cut out before 1910 and the town faded away. Descendants restored the overgrown burial ground in the 1990s.
Moscow, Camden & San Augustine Railroad
Camden, TX
Chartered in 1898 by lumberman W. T. Carter, the Moscow, Camden & San Augustine Railroad linked the sawmill town of Camden to the main line at Moscow along just seven miles of track. It became Texas's shortest mixed-train railroad, carrying both passengers and freight behind a single engine. One of its retired engines, "Panama No. 201," had helped build the Panama Canal in 1914 before serving here.
Emporia
Diboll, TX
In 1893 the Emporia Lumber Company's owners S.F. Carter and M.T. Jones bought more than 5,000 acres in south Angelina County and built a company town around a sawmill, complete with a railroad spur, logging camps, company houses, schools, churches, stores, and a cemetery. When the mill burned in 1906 it was never rebuilt, yet residents lingered even as the company folded. In time the town was swallowed by the growing city of Diboll.
Lindsey Springs Logging Camp
Lufkin vicinity, TX
In 1899 the Southern Pine Lumber Company opened its first logging camp beside Lindsey Springs, whose reliable water made the site viable. Within a year the camp housed about 110 people and had its own store, school, and church, with a narrow-gauge railroad hauling logs to the mill at Diboll. By 1906 the marketable timber was cut out and the camp moved on — the boom-and-bust rhythm of the East Texas lumber industry in miniature.