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History
All Over
by Archie
P. McDonald |
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Residency
has led me to write much about Nacogdoches,
Texas, where I have taught history at SFA since Steve himself
was a student. But I like other East
Texas towns, too, both because of their history and some of the
historians who live there. Here are a few of them.
We will begin with Lufkin,
home of my writing colleague Bob
Bowman, and also where paper making in Texas began in the 1940s
when the Kurth family encouraged the immigration of Canadian papermakers
to East Texas so they
could inaugurate a new industry to utilize our abundance of yellow
pine.
Down the road in Beaumont,
the Spindletop
gusher blew its subterranean brew high over Anthony Lucas' wooden
drilling rig on January 10, 1901, providing enough of the stuff to
stimulate other new industries such as automobiles and everything
connected with them. Beaumont
is also where my first mentor, Dr. Ralph Wooster, taught history at
Lamar University for 50 years. Among friends and colleagues who live
with and upon the history of Jefferson County are Naaman Woodland,
Jo Ann Stiles, John Storey, Mary Kelley, and Ron Ellison.
The discovery of oil near Kilgore
on October 3, 1930, by Columbus M. "Dad" Joiner, also changed that
community and Gregg County. Among other things, it provided a place
for my former student and good friend Joe White to teach at Kilgore
College and also run the best oil museum in the world. Meanwhile,
LeTourneau College in Longview
has given our friend Ken Durham steady work for a long time.
Tyler and Smith County share a remarkable history that is nurtured
with diligence and skill by Ann Lawrence, Robert Glover, Jeffrey Owens,
Rob Jones, and that sweet little Linda Cross, an old-fashioned girl
and one of the best and brightest of those who suffered through my
notorious historiography seminar.
Upshur County is the home of our Gilmer Mirror publisher friend Sarah
Greene, and where sister Mary Kirby, tends the fires of local history
and sweet potato Yamborees.
In Huntsville,
home of Sam Houston State University and headquarters of our state's
criminal justice program, Ty Cashion, Carolyn Crimm, and James Olson
write about football, log cabins, and John Wayne—to name but a few
subjects.
Ted Lawe runs the A.C. McMillan African American Museum in Emory,
in Raines County, Bill O'Neal writes about cowboys and lawmen from
Carthage, James
Smallwood remains the historical oracle of Gainesville,
and Betty and John Oglesbee and especially Willie Earl Tindall, have
the last word about the history of San
Augustine.
Historians, like undertakers, get everything and everyone in the end.
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© Archie P. McDonald
All
Things Historical
June 30, 2008 column
A syndicated column in over 70 East Texas newspapers
(The East Texas Historical Association provides this column as a public
service. Archie P. McDonald is director of the Association and author
of more than 20 books on Texas.) |
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Books
by Archie P. McDonald - Order Here
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| Primary
Source Accounts of the Civil War |
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