Hoshall

Duane's take

Here's the story as the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, before there was a Hoshall, there was a Bitterweed Flat. That name alone ought to tell you something about the character of the land — and the people stubborn enough to settle it.

The Houston East and West Texas Railroad came rolling through Angelina County in 1882, and wherever those rails went, communities had a way of sprouting up alongside them, whether the wilderness liked it or not. Bitterweed Flat is where our story takes root. For a good while it was just that — a flat stretch of east Texas timber country with a railroad line running through it.

Then, in 1913, a man named W. E. Hoshall arrived with a checkbook and an eye for opportunity.

He purchased land and timber rights in the area and started shipping logs right out of what became known as Hoshall Switch, a stop on the HE&WT line there in Bitterweed Flat. Logs moving. Money moving.

The wheels of something bigger just beginning to turn. Four years later, in 1917, a man named Luke E. Wright decided that a switch and some stacked timber wasn't quite enough.

He established a sawmill and built something resembling a real town around it — churches, schools, a commissary, the whole picture. They named that company town Hoshall, and it was home to both Anglo and African American citizens living and working at the edge of the east Texas pines. Now, company towns have a particular kind of life to them.

They rise fast, they hum loud, and then — quiet. The sawmills closed. And by 1940, all that remained of Hoshall was the cemetery and the mill pond.

Two things. Out of churches and schools and a commissary and a whole community of people — two things. A place to remember the dead, and a still pool of water that used to power something living.

East Texas has a way of taking back what it lends you, and it doesn't always give you much warning.

What the marker says

The Houston East and West Texas (HE&WT) Railroad came through Angelina County in 1882 and a community named Bitterweed Flat developed here. In 1913 W. E. Hoshall purchased land and timber rights in the area and began shipping logs from Hoshall Switch on the HE&WT in Bitterweed Flat. In 1917 Luke E. Wright established a sawmill and town with churches, schools, and a commissary at the switch site. The company town was named Hoshall and consisted of Anglo and African American citizens. The sawmills closed and by 1940 all that remained was the cemetery and the mill pond. Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845 - 1995