Site of Rehearsal Hall for The Hoo Hoo Band

Duane's take

Here's the story as the marker tells it, straight off the official record in Angelina County. At the turn of the century, a group of Lufkin men decided their town needed a brass band. Now, that right there is already a statement of ambition.

You don't organize a brass band unless you believe your town deserves one. And these men believed. So they got together, they picked up their instruments, and they made music.

For a while, that's exactly what they were: a town brass band, full stop. But then came the moment that gave them their name, and it is a name worth savin'. The band traveled to represent Texas at a national convention of the Order of Hoo Hoo, an organization of American and Canadian lumbermen.

They came back from that convention with something extra: a name that stuck. From that point forward, they were the Hoo Hoo Band. Now these men were not content to simply play.

They set up in Cotton, also known as Calder, Square and gave concerts to their neighbors. They performed at events around the area. And, perhaps most remarkably, they took on civic work that went well beyond music.

The Hoo Hoo Band helped direct the formation of Lufkin's own fire department. Think on that. A brass band, helping build the infrastructure of a growing town.

By the nineteen twenties, school bands had come into their own and grown popular, and the Hoo Hoo Band quietly went inactive. But the marker doesn't let them fade out without saying what they were. They remain, it says, a symbol of Lufkin's early civic pride and quality of life.

A brass band that named themselves after lumbermen and helped organize a fire department. Lufkin, that is a founding story worth remembering.

What the marker says

At the turn of the century, a group of Lufkin men organized a town brass band. It later became known as the Hoo Hoo Band after representing Texas at a national convention of the Order of Hoo Hoo, an organization of American and Canadian lumbermen. In addition to concerts in nearby Cotton (Calder) Square, the band performed at various events and also directed such civic projects as the formation of the town's fire department. Inactive by the 1920s when school bands became popular, the Hoo Hoo Band remans a symbol of Lufkin's early civic pride and quality of life. (1982)