History
Rembert-Harrison House
Frank Taylor Rembert (1853-1926) was born in Copiah County, Mississippi. In 1872 he came to Texas, where he had relatives and a job with the Houston & Great Northern Railroad in Crockett. While working in Scottsville, he met Kate Womack, and the two married in 1878. The couple moved to Longview, where they bought a cottage already on this site.
Industry & Science
Robert Gilmour LeTourneau
(November 30, 1888 - June 1, 1969) A native of Richford, Vermont, Robert G. LeTourneau built his first industrial plant in Stockton, California, in 1921. A self-educated man, he invented and pioneered the use of components now standard in many types of construction equipment.
History
Rock Springs Schoolhouse
Built 1849, with donated labor and lumber. One-teacher school was taught here until 1930's. First teacher was J. C. Vernon. First trustees: Thomas G. Chisum, James "Squire" Dillingham, Joel Smith. (Smith donated the site.) Building was also used for church, Grange, socials, fraternal meetings, and political rallies. Community named for nearby springs. Settled by pioneers from Tennessee.
History
Rockwall Farm
Large colonial home built 50 yards north, 1854. Overnight stop on Wm. T. Brooks' stagecoach line from Monroe, La., to Tyler. From here, mail went to Earpville, a site now in Longview. Slaves hewed lumber, made the chimney brocks from trees and clay on the place. The first floor partitions folded away to make big ballroom.
History
Rosedale Cemetery
When John Kettle Armstrong and his wife Sarah bought 160 acres here in 1844, they were among the first settlers. Sarah died in 1856 and Armstrong set aside this tract for a cemetery. Tradition says the Armstrong slaves were interred outside the grounds. After Armstrong's death in 1860, his second wife Margaret Fisher married a Mr. Stewart.
Industry & Science
Sabine River Off Shore Wells
The vast East Texas oilfield was discovered in October 1930, and wells were soon located across the field in five Texas counties. Drilling was expanded to include the Sabine River bed, which was owned by the state of Texas, in late summer 1932. The riverbed was divided into tracts and leased to drilling companies.
History
Site of Earpville
This site was once within the boundary of the community of Earpville, settled in the late 1840s by James Earp (d. 1861) and many of his relatives from Alabama. Located on a stagecoach line, the settlement at its height boasted a post office, stage stop, Methodist church, and retail businesses and was the commercial and social center for farmers in the region.
History
Site of Harmon General Hospital
Established here by the United States Army in 1942, Harmon General Hospital was named for Colonel Daniel W. Harmon (1880-1940), a medical officer in the regular Army. 220 buildings were rapidly constructed on the 156-acre site, and the hospital was activated on Nov. 24, 1942, with Colonel G. V. Emerson as the first commanding officer.
History
Site of James S. Hogg Newspaper
Texas' first native governor (1891-1895), James Stephen Hogg, founded here in 1871 his first newspaper, the Longview News. He was then 20 years old. In his paper Hogg was a strong supporter of educational and governmental improvements for Longview. He campaigned against radical reconstruction policies, railroad subsidies, lawlessness.
History
Site of Shiloh School
The newly freed African Americans of the Shiloh community established a school for their children shortly after the Civil War. The one-room building was demolished in the late 1800s and classes were held at the Shiloh Baptist Church. With financial assistance from the Julius Rosenwald fund, a new two-room school was erected in 1920. It was replaced by a large brick building in the 1930s.
History
The Courthouses of Gregg County
Gregg County was formed in 1873 and Longview was chosen as county seat. The first temporary courthouse was a small building at the corner of Fredonia and Tyler streets. It soon proved inadequate, however, and another temporary courthouse was set up on the second floor of the 2-story W. G. Northcutt Hardware Store.
History
The Grove
The Grove The Grove was a natural timber stand within what became Longview in 1870. Tradition holds that the area's freedmen gathered in the Grove for worship services as early as the 1860s. In 1871, John R. Magrill sold the one-acre grove tract to the town's African American population. Acting on their behalf were O.J. Taylor, Silas Billup and Alick Berry.
Transport
The Kilgore I&GN-Missouri Pacific Railroad Station
The town of Kilgore was platted by the International Railroad Company after it purchased land for a townsite from C. B. "Buck" Kilgore, who had donated a 200-foot railroad right-of-way in 1871. Kilgore, a resident of Danville (4 mi. E), recognizing the economic opportunities afforded by the railroad, soon built a new home near the station.
History
The New Deal Era in Kilgore
After the discovery of oil here in the 1930s, this site was transformed into a makeshift tent city by thousands of people displaced by a deepening national depression. In an effort to control growth, city officials chose this site as the focus of an ambitious public works program in 1934.
History
Turner Home
Built in 1874, two years after town was established. A fireplace in each room, a stairway of carved walnut. Builder J. C. Turner, Sr., was first East Texan to import jersey cattle. Skilled horseman, thoroughbred owner. Old well and dairy house nearby.
History
Wartime Home Industry
At this site, 1861-65, settler Joseph M. sparkman manufactured shoes for the Confederate Army. A victim of arthritis, he lay on his cot and ran the shop, while "Uncle Ben," a skilled slave shoemaker who had come with him from Georgia, supervised and taught young boys and old men who made the shoes. Both Joseph M. Sparkman and "Uncle Ben" are buried in the family plot on the estate, near here.
History
Winterfield Cemetery
This cemetery began on the farm purchased in 1879 by July G. and Martha Howard Garner. Land was set aside for a family cemetery upon the deaths of the Garners' nephew, Joel S. Bright, and niece, Jessie L. Webb, in November 1887. This family cemetery eventually became a community graveyard with more than 500 graves.
History
World's Richest Acre
Part of fabulous East Texas oil field discovered in 1930. This 1.195-acre tract had first production on June 17, 1937, when the Mrs. Bess Johnson-Adams & Hale No. 1 well was brought in. Developed before well-spacing rules, this block is the most densely drilled tract in the world, with 24 wells on 10 lots owned by six different operators.
Elsewhere in Texas
Hear it from the road
Whistlestop tells you this story automatically when you drive past. No searching, no tapping, nothing to ask.
