Rusk County Agriculture

Duane's take

The official marker tells this one, and I'm just the voice carryin' it down the road with you. Rusk County, Texas. Pull up a log and listen, because this is a story that spans the whole arc of what it means to work the land.

It starts big, gets small, and then changes shape entirely before it's done. In the early years of Texas statehood, Rusk County was home to a number of large plantations. We're talking serious operations, the kind that defined a whole way of life in that part of East Texas.

Then the Civil War came, and by the time it ended, many of those plantations were gone. Just gone. What replaced them were small farms, and those small farms grew cotton, sugar cane, grains, all manner of vegetables and fruits.

The county kept working. The land kept giving, just differently than before. Now here's where the story turns again, because Rusk County never was the kind of place that stood still.

Come the early nineteen hundreds, lumber stepped forward as a major product of the county. All those East Texas pines had something to say about that. Then through the twentieth century, cattle production increased considerably, even as the number of farms actually decreased.

Fewer hands, more beef. The math of modern agriculture working itself out right there in Rusk County. But the final turn is the one worth sitting with.

In recent years, the county shifted its focus away from agriculture altogether, moving toward oil and mining interests. The plantations gave way to small farms. The small farms made room for lumber and cattle.

And then the ground itself offered up something new entirely. That's Rusk County, always finding what the land was hiding.

What the marker says

In the early years of Texas statehood Rusk County was home to a number of large plantations. By the end of the Civil War many of the plantations were gone, and small farms replaced larger operations. Crops included cotton, sugar cane, grains, and many vegetables and fruits. In the early 1900s lumber became a major product of the county. Cattle production increased considerably through the 20th century, though the number of farms decreased. Recent years in Rusk County have seen a shift in focus away from agriculture toward oil and mining interests. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986