Cherokee County History
Cherokee County was named for the Cherokee Indians who lived in the area before being expelled in 1839. The land has a forest of shortleaf and loblolly pine with mixed hardwoods. Three major reservoirs lie wholly or partly within the county: Lake Palestine , Stirker Creek Reservoir and Lake Jacksonville . The underlying Carrizo-Wilcox aquifer provides much of the water supply to municipalities.
Early Indian habitation has been thoroughly investigated. Indian development has been found with the arrival of the Caddos about 780 A.D. until about 1260. The record of early European contact is somewhat vague. European visitors passed through in 1542 then in 1686-1690, with the establishment of San Francisco de los Tejas Mission in neighboring Houston County .
Rapid settlement began in 1834. On October 5, 1838, settlers took over much of the Indian land. The Indians massacred families and farms of Cherokee County . This led to the Cherokee War of 1839 and the expulsion of all Indians from the county. White settlers quickly occupied the abandoned Indian farms. On April 11, 1846, towns were organized and on July 13, the town of Rusk was named the county seat.
Settlers came mostly from the south. Cotton, corn and wheat were the area's principal crops. Baptists organized the first church in 1844 and remain the largest denomination. Methodist and Presbyterian churches also appeared in the 1840s. A Catholic parish has been active since 1950.
Educational institutions began to develop in Cherokee County soon after white settlement in the area. There was an academy by 1848, and by 1855 there were seven public schools which ranked first in the state. The Civil War considerably disrupted education, but by the twentieth century led to consolidation of schools. Higher education is now represented by two church-related junior colleges, Lon Morris College and Jacksonville College, and by North American Theological Seminary.
In addition to Rusk, several new towns appeared shortly after the organization of the county. Larissa, founded in 1846 in the northwest part of the county, became the largest town. Gum Creek, soon renamed Jacksonville, was founded in 1847. Alto was established on the Old San Antonio Road in 1851. Lone Star (originally Skin Tight), Knoxville , and Griffin were other pioneer communities.
Railroad construction and agricultural development, especially the expansion of cotton cultivation, helped the county to grow and mature between 1870 and 1900. In 1870, there were 1,216 farms and ranches in Cherokee County , and the county had a population of 11,079. By 1900, 3,683 farms and ranches had been established in the county, and the population had increased to 25,154. During this same period, total acres in farms rose from 133,014 to almost 341,000; the number of improved acres more than tripled, from about 43,000 to almost 149,000.
The arrival of the railroads also drastically altered the settlement pattern. All the old towns, except Jacksonville, Rusk, and Alto, disappeared, unable to compete with the new railroad centers. The International–Great Northern (later the Missouri Pacific), built in 1872, gave rise to Troup and a relocated and revitalized Jacksonville . Between 1882 and 1885, the Kansas and Gulf Short Line built north-to-south through the county, producing new towns—Bullard, Mount Selman, Craft, Dialville, Forest, and Wells—and bringing rail service to Rusk and Alto. In 1905, the Texas and New Orleans produced Cuney, Reese, Turney, Gallatin, Ponta, and Reklaw. Maydelle appeared on the Texas State Railroad in 1910. The only new town not associated with a railroad was New Summerfield, which was founded as a market center in the late 1890s. The automobile and school consolidations led to the growth of the four central towns— Jacksonville , Rusk, Alto, and Wells—at the expense of the others, which today typically have only one or two stores.
The decline of farming, which began in the 1930s, and increased industrial job opportunities in the years during and after World War II led to another major population shift. County population reached a peak of 43,970 in 1940, then declined to 38,694 in 1950, and to 33,120 in 1960 before dropping to its lowest point of 32,008 in 1970. Yet, during these same years, the population of the larger towns in the county increased. This indicated both emigration from the county to outside urban areas and migration within the county from the countryside to the towns.
Although no longer preeminent, agriculture remains important in the economy. Cotton replaced wheat as the major crop immediately after the Civil War, and continued to grow in importance into the twentieth century. In 1928, the county's cotton production reached its maximum (36,951 bales), and in 1929, 113,689 acres of Cherokee County farmland was devoted to its cultivation. But in the 1930s, production fell sharply because of low prices and New Deal allotment programs. By 1940, cotton production utilized only about 45,000 acres in the county. Peaches became important after the introduction of refrigerator cars in 1893, and Cherokee County orchards produced a record of 1,204 carloads in 1912 before the San José scale and marketing troubles brought a decline. In the late 1930s, however, peach production revived somewhat (see FRUITS OTHER THAN CITRUS).
From its beginnings at Craft in 1897, tomato culture grew until by 1917 Cherokee County produced 90 percent of the tomatoes shipped from Texas. Tomatoes remained a major product in the county until increased competition and marketing problems caused a sudden collapse in the 1950s. Since then, Cherokee County agriculture has centered on cattle and timber. The nursery industry dates from the 1880s and is of increasing importance in the New Summerfield–Reklaw area. Some truck farming still exists, and dairies remain significant. Some poultry production remains from the boom of the late 1950s. Sharecropping, which had been prevalent since Reconstruction, largely disappeared with farming. The typical Cherokee County farm of today is a beef-and-timber operation run as a sideline by a landowner with a job in town.
The twentieth century brought great improvements in transportation. The first automobile arrived in 1905. By the 1920s, automobile ownership was commonplace. During the 1930s and 1940s, the basic highway system was paved. Four federal and four state highways now cross the county, while hundreds of miles of paved farm-to-market roads network the rural areas. Rail transportation has been sharply curtailed. The last passenger train ran in the late 1960s, and in the early 1980s the Southern Pacific stopped all service, as did the Cotton Belt , south of Rusk. The first airport in the county was established at Jacksonville in 1934. The present county airport, built in 1961, has no scheduled airline service.
Sawmills provided the first industry, beginning with John Durst's mill at the lower San Antonio Road crossing of the Angelina in 1832. Three times the rich iron ore deposits have produced important industries. Blast furnaces operated during the Civil War, in the 1884-1909 period, and during World War II. The industry led to the founding in 1888 of New Birmingham, which grew to be a city of some 2,000 inhabitants before collapsing completely as a result of the panic of 1893. Since World War II, industry has led the private sector of the economy, employing around 30 percent of the private-sector work force. Jacksonville has become the industrial and commercial hub of the county. There, more than sixty firms make wood, metal, and plastic products. Altogether, some 114 manufacturing firms operated in the county in 1977. Oil was discovered in 1933, but technical and financial difficulties prevented development until 1934. Continuing discoveries produced an oil value of $51,379,910 by 1982. Currently, some 26 percent of the labor force works in professional and related services (a relatively high figure reflecting employment at the Rusk State Hospital), 22 percent in manufacturing, and 18 percent in wholesale and retail trade. Tourism is of growing importance, spurred by the establishment in 1971 of the Texas State Railroad State Historical Park.
Incorporated towns include Jacksonville, Rusk, Alto, Wells, New Summerfield, Cuney, and Gallatin. Reklaw is partly in Rusk County , while Troup and Bullard are mostly in Smith County.