DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the marker tells it, and I'll let the story do the talking. Old Hardin. Founded in 1859 as the first county seat of Hardin County — a county that had just been created the year before, in 1858.
So right from the start, this place had a purpose, a reason to exist, a future laid out in front of it. And for a good while, it prospered. Folks built their lives here.
A courthouse stood on this very ground, the seat of law and order for the whole county. Things were looking fine. Then came 1881, and the Sabine and East Texas Railroad laid its tracks — and didn't lay them through Old Hardin.
Bypassed it clean. Now, you know what happens to a town that the railroad doesn't want. The wheels of commerce start turning somewhere else, and they don't look back.
Old Hardin felt that. But the courthouse was still standing, county seat was still county seat, and maybe — maybe — things could have held on a little longer. Then August the 8th, 1886.
The courthouse burned. The marker calls the origin of that fire suspicious, and I'll leave that word right where it is, because it carries plenty of weight on its own. Suspicious.
A courthouse. Gone. And then in 1887, an election was held, and Kountze — sitting right there on the railroad — was named the new county seat.
Old Hardin had been bypassed, then burned, then voted out. Some towns just get outrun by history. This was one of them.
What the marker says
Founded 1859 as first county seat of Hardin County, created in 1858. Prospered until bypassed by Sabine & East Texas Railroad in 1881. A fire of suspicious origin razed the Courthouse here on Aug. 8, 1886. In an 1887 election, Kountze, on the railroad, was named the county seat.