Malakoff

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. You're rolling through Henderson County now, and the town of Malakoff has a story that starts somewhere else entirely, about one-and-a-half miles north of where you're sitting, on the banks of Caney Creek. That's where it all began, a settlement so early its roots reach back to the 1830s, making it one of the oldest towns in the whole county.

Now, the first thing a community needs is somebody to hold it together. In this case, that somebody was a widow who'd come all the way from Alabama. Her name was Jane Irvine, and she built a grist mill on Caney Creek that became the beating heart of the settlement.

People came to the mill, and where people gather, a community grows. By 1852, the Rev. Hezekiah Mitcham had organized a Methodist church out there, and the little place took on the name Mitcham Chapel, after the church itself.

Seemed like a fine name. Fitting. Permanent, even.

But then came the post office. When the time came to establish one in 1855, the name Mitcham was already spoken for. There was already a Mitcham postal station somewhere else in Texas, and you can't have two of those.

So they needed a new name, and here is where the story takes a turn that nobody around Caney Creek could have predicted. Half a world away, a war was being fought. The Crimean War, 1853 to 1855.

And in the middle of all that conflict, a Russian town called Malakoff had been gaining attention. Somebody, somewhere along the line, liked the sound of it. Malakoff it was.

A Russian name, planted in East Texas soil. The post office opened in 1855, and Caney Creek had a new identity. Then came the railroad.

When the line was completed through Henderson County in 1880, the town shifted again, quite literally. A new townsite was platted, closer to the rail, laid out on the Peter Tumlinson survey. They called it New Malakoff, and that new version of the town hit its stride in the early 1900s.

Two banks. A newspaper. Telephone service.

Other businesses followed. The kind of commercial growth that makes a town feel like it has somewhere to go. And then, in 1912, the ground itself offered up one more gift.

Lignite coal, discovered near Malakoff, and the mining operations that followed became Henderson County's largest industry. From a widow's grist mill on a creek, to a name borrowed from a Crimean War battlefield, to coal pulling itself out of the earth. Malakoff earned every mile of that journey.

What the marker says

Malakoff began as a settlement known as Caney Creek about one-and-one-half miles north of the present-day town. One of the earliest settlers in the area was a widow from Alabama, Jane Irvine, whose grist mill on Caney Creek became the center of the small community that developed. It came to be known as Mitcham Chapel after a Methodist church by the same name was organized by the Rev. Hezekiah Mitcham in 1852. The name Malakoff was chosen when the post office was established in 1855, since the name Mitcham already had been used for a Texas postal station. Malakoff was a Russian town that had gained attention during the Crimean War (1853-1855). After the railroad was completed through Henderson County in 1880, a new townsite, closer to the rail line, was platted on the Peter Tumlinson survey. "New Malakoff" experienced much commercial growth during the early 1900s with the founding of two banks, a newspaper, telephone service, and other businesses. Lignite coal was discovered near Malakoff in 1912, and the subsequent mining operations came to be Henderson County's largest industry. With its settlement dating to the 1830s, Malakoff is one of Henderson County's oldest towns.