Huntington

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll let the story do the talking. Now, before Huntington was anything at all, settlers took a run at this piece of East Texas back in the 1880s. They had ambition.

They had the land. What they didn't have was a railroad, and without a railroad, ambition only gets you so far out in the southern pine timber country. So that first attempt at a townsite just kind of faded back into the trees.

Then came the rails, and everything changed. In 1900, right in the heyday of the southern pine timber industry, a town was carved out of virgin forest and given a name: Huntington, after Collis P. Huntington, chairman of the board of the Southern Pacific Railroad.

The man had a railroad. He got a town named after him. That's how things worked.

Two men, E. A. Blount and W.

J. Townsend, Sr., put together a townsite and sold lots at a public auction in June of 1900. Before the year was out, a post office was open with R.

D. Chapman serving as postmaster. By 1901, the Huntington Common School District had been created.

A. F. Smith built a sawmill just outside town within that first year.

Lumber and agriculture were the economic heart of the place, and that heart was beating strong. A Baptist church came in 1901. A Methodist Episcopal church followed in 1902.

Huntington was putting down roots fast, and then the Texas and New Orleans rail line from Beaumont to Dallas came through that same year, 1902, sealing the town's fate in the best possible way. A permanent railroad station went up in 1903. Huntington became a center for lumber shipping, and the town prospered.

By 1907, there was a local telephone exchange. A newspaper, The Huntington Messenger, was eventually succeeded by The Huntington Herald in 1911. Along the way, the town filled in nicely: hotels, drugstores, mercantile and grocery stores, a bank, several saloons, blacksmith shops, cotton gins, and several local physicians to tend to folks when the sawmill or the cotton gin or the saloons had their way with them.

Highway 40, which later became U.S. Highway 69, was completed to the county line in 1924. Electrical service reached the area in 1927.

The town was incorporated in 1938. And then there's the part of the story that slows you down. In 1953, the McMullen Memorial Library was dedicated.

It stands as a memorial to the nineteen Huntington men who died in World War II. Nineteen names. A library built so a community would never stop reading their story.

Huntington grew steadily through the rest of the twentieth century and was still thriving at the dawn of the twenty-first. Started by settlers who couldn't quite make it stick, saved by a railroad, shaped by timber and faith and loss. Some towns just decide they're going to last.

Huntington decided early.

What the marker says

Settlers attempted to form a townsite in this area in the 1880s, but it was not until the arrival of the railroad lines that it attracted a thriving population. Carved from virgin forests in the heyday of the southern pine timber industry and established in 1900, Huntington was named for Collis P. Huntington, chairman of the board of the Southern Pacific Railroad. E. A. Blount and W. J. Townsend, Sr., established a townsite and sold lots at a public auction in June 1900. A post office opened in 1900 with R. D. Chapman as postmaster; the Huntington Common School District was created in 1901. Within a year, A. F. Smith built a sawmill outside town. Lumber and agriculture were the area's economic heart. A Baptist church and a Methodist Episcopal church were established in 1901 and 1902. After the Texas & New Orleans rail line from Beaumont to Dallas was built through Huntington in 1902, a permanent railroad station was erected in 1903. Huntington became a center for lumber shipping and the town soon prospered. A local telephone exchange was established in 1907. A newspaper, The Huntington Messenger, was succeeded by The Huntington Herald in 1911. Huntington also had hotels, drugstores, mercantile and grocery stores, a bank, several saloons, blacksmith shops and cotton gins. Several local physicians provided medical services. Highway 40 (later U.S. Highway 69) was completed to the county line in 1924, and area electrical service began in 1927. The town was incorporated in 1938. The McMullen Memorial Library was dedicated in 1953 as a memorial to the nineteen Huntington men who died in World War II. Huntington grew steadily throughout the remainder of the 20th century and continues to thrive at the dawn of the 21st. (2000)