East Texas History
A project by Sam Houston State UniversityEast Texas History is a free mobile app and web platform that places the past at your fingertips. Designed by the History Department at Sam Houston State University, the project seeks to highlight the distinctive people, places, and events that have shaped East Texas. Viewers may learn about the region through our interactive, map-based interface that includes historical stories, photographs, and oral interviews. Follow our progress on Twitter or connect with us on Facebook to learn more about the project or to become a participating author.
Read more About UsFeatured Stories
St. Joseph's Catholic Church
In 1866, a group of East Texas plantation owners working with the Polish merchant, Meyer Levy, formed the Waverly Emigration Society. This enterprising new group hoped to bring European farmers to the Waverly area in order to replace the…
Civilian Conservation Corps Camp and District Headquarters - Lufkin, Texas
Established in 1882, the town of Lufkin grew up amidst a regional timber boom that shaped East Texas. During the late nineteenth century, as national population growth and industrial development exhausted the few remaining hardwood forests in the…
Wendell Harold Baker
The son of Jesse and Fannie Baker, Wendell Harold Baker (1922-2013) played a crucial role in the civil rights movement in Walker County. His parents provided him with a first rate public education, and he graduated with honors from Samuel Walker…
Featured Tours
The Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1867
12 Locations ~ Curated by Zachary Doleshal, Ph.D., SHSU Public History Students of 2017Random Stories
Sam Houston & Chief Bowl (Duwali) (AKA "The Treaty")
This statue is located on the south side of Main Street in Nacogdoches just east of the square and features Sam Houston (1793-1863) and Cherokee Chief Bowl (1756-1839). On February 23, 1836, Sam Houston and Chief Bowl signed a treaty granting…
Manning Texas
In 1863, Dr. W.W. Manning, a native of Monroe, Louisiana, constructed a small sawmill in Angelina County close to the Neches River. The enterprise proved at least moderately successful, and Manning expanded his business in 1885, adding one of the…
Woodland Home Kitchen
One of the most important centers at the Houston home was the kitchen. A simple, single, large wooden room with a stone fireplace in the back, the kitchen served as the location for preparing food, washing clothes, soap making, animal butchering,…
First Presbyterian Church of Huntsville
Following the Texas Revolution in 1836, the Constitution of the new Republic of Texas guaranteed every person the right “to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience.” As a result of this broad declaration of religious liberty,…
Karle Wilson Baker (1878-1960)
In 1878, Karle Wilson Baker was born to William Thomas Murphey and Kate Florence (Montgomery) Wilson in Little Rock, Arkansas. She attended the University of Chicago, Columbia University, and the University of California at Berkeley. Still, the only…
Wynne House
Gustavus Adair Wynne and Samuella Gibbs, who became civic and business leaders in Huntsville, married in 1883 and moved into this house, which they first built in the Queen Anne style.
By 1917, they transformed the house into a classical revival…