Huntsville's First United Methodist Church, located at 1016 Sam Houston Avenue, has served as a key institution in Walker County for over 150 years. Throughout its long history, First United Methodist has provided its parishioners with spiritual sustenance and community support. The church has grown over the years experiencing significant change and times of great hardship. Despite its many transformations, however, the church and its congregation have enriched the local community.

The first Methodist congregation in Huntsville began in the 1830s at Martha's Chapel, located ten miles south of town. According to records from the First Baptist Church of Huntsville, on Saturday, February 17, 1855, "it was unanimously voted that the Methodist Brethren at this place have use of this House the second and fourth Sabbaths in each month with the privilege of holding prayer meetings once a week as per their request, etc." In 1857, W.M Barrett constructed the First Methodist church building in Huntsville. Rev. A. Davis served as the church's pastor at the time, while Thomas and Sanford Gibbs, Robert and Williamson Wynne, and Dr. J.A. Thomason served on the board of trustees. Rev. Robert Alexander preached the dedication sermon. In 1888, the brick building was reconstructed to compensate for the growing congregation. In 1900, a large wooden structure was added onto the back of the building, which became the Sunday School department.

In 1910, a fire destroyed the Sunday School and also damaged the main auditorium and organ. Rev. E.W. Solomon led the effort to construct a new building. In 1913, the building project was completed under the pastorate of Rev. R.W. Adams. However, peace was short-lived. On February 25, 1918, the First Methodist building was again destroyed by fire. The community of Huntsville rallied together to rebuild the First Methodist again. In 1919, the church was reconstructed as a duplicate of the previous building. In 1934, the church installed a set of Deagan Tower Chimes, which are today one of a few remaining sets in Texas. Between 1954 and 1972, First United Methodist Church experienced a period of growth, adding an educational building, nursery, a social hall with a kitchen and ten classrooms. In 1991, a new building was constructed, adding church offices, classrooms and an assembly room. First United Methodist Church has thrived in Walker County for more than 150 years because of the strength of its people. Their passion for ministry and mission is FUMC's most lasting legacy.

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During the summer months of 2001, representatives from Huntsville’s Main Street Program worked with faculty members and students from Sam Houston State University to move the historic Roberts-Farris cabin from its location in West Sandy to a prominent site on Huntsville’s downtown square. It is there that the cabin sits today, at the intersection of University Avenue and 11th Street, on the location that Huntsville’s founder, Pleasant Gray, built the region’s first Anglo trading post. Yet, the story of the cabin -- its creator and construction -- is far more interesting than the simple site might suggest today.

Originally built in the mid-1840s, the cabin was intended as a gift from Hezekiah Faris (later Farris) to his stepson, Allen Roberts. Farris himself was a native of Virginia and long-time resident of Tennessee who migrated to Texas in 1835. He fought at the Battle of San Jacinto with Captain James Gillaspie and may have helped to capture the Mexican General Santa Anna. Following the Texian War for Independence, Farris received a headright of land from the new Republic of Texas in February 1838 and settled there with his wife, widow Matilda Roberts. In 1841, Farris and his brother, William, founded a church called Farris Chapel, which provided a home to multiple denominations and served as the basis of a community that exists still today.

Shortly after the completion of the church, Ferris hired a builder to construct a log cabin for his stepson, Allen, who had recently arrived in Texas. Originally located about 15 miles southwest of Huntsville along Sandy Creek, the cabin was constructed with “square-hewn logs and half-dovetail notches” -- a distinctive building style that showed up in several other cabins in the area.

Despite the expert craftsmanship that went into the cabin, the Ferris family moved the structure at least three times, disassembling and rebuilding it as needed. In fact, the cabin has provided shelter for many different people over the last 175 years. During the Great Depression in the 1930s, Alton Farris rented the building to tenant farmers who worked on his property, and one couple even used it as their honeymoon cabin in 1939. Yet, in recent decades, the cabin had fallen into disrepair, functioning primarily as a hay shed and refuge for animals.

In 2001, Farris descendent Maggie Farris Parker donated the cabin and $1000 to the City of Huntsville. Although degeneration and decay had beset the little home, and dry rot and termites had damaged many of its logs, the leaders of Huntsville’s Main Street Program teamed up with Sam Houston State University to restore the structure and move it to a place of prominence on the courthouse square. Tucked on a small lot at the heart of the town founded by Pleasant Gray, the Cabin on the Square now houses a shop where local hand-craft groups sell their wares.

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Born in 1822, Joshua Houston was raised as a slave on the Lea plantation near Marion, Alabama. When his master, Temple Lea, died in 1834, ownership of Joshua was transferred to Temple's daughter, Margaret Lea. There seems to have been little change in Joshua's situation, however, until Margaret married Sam Houston in 1840. At that time, Joshua became the property of the most well-known man in Texas, and he soon helped Margaret move to her newly adopted state.

During the 1840s, Joshua learned to read and write, and he became a skilled craftsman. In fact, he used his talents as a blacksmith to help build the Houston home at Raven Hill, thirteen miles east of Huntsville, Texas. Joshua also served the Houston family in a number of other capacities. He repeatedly helped the Houston's move, transferring furniture, books, and other property from Cedar Point and Huntsville to Washington-on-the Brazos, Austin, Independence, and for a time even to Washington D.C. These moves required diligent preparation and a skillful hand as a blacksmith and wheelwright.

Beginning some time around 1850, Sam Houston allowed Joshua to hire out as a stage driver and blacksmith to make money of his own. There was only a small profit to be made in such a situation, however, and it was not until 1862 that Joshua's lot changed for good. That fall, after reading about Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, Sam Houston freed Joshua and his other slaves, encouraging them to go out into the wider world. Most of the slaves stayed with Sam Houston until his death in July 1863, however, and a few of them even traveled with Margaret when she moved to Independence later that year.

After the Civil War, Joshua entered an exciting new stage of his life, becoming one of Walker County's leading African American figures. In January 1866, he purchased a tract of land on 10th Street in Huntsville for $120 from Micajah Clark Rogers, the first mayor of the city. In a short time, Joshua had his own two-story house with a blacksmith shop across the street. In fact, his neighborhood grew quickly, and it became known as Rogersville for the beneficent white ally the city's African Americans had in Micajah Rogers.

As Joshua's business developed he played a key role in the local African American church. In April 1867, he joined with William Baines and Strother Green as "trustees for the Freed people's church in the Town of Huntsville." For $50, Joshua and his friends bought property three blocks from the local square, and they became founding member of the new Union Church, which was the first black-owned church in the city. The Union Church served both Baptists and Methodists, and it was also the site of one of the earliest black schools in Huntsville. As Patricia Prather and Jane Monday have argued, "This became the first institution in Huntsville owned collectively by ex-slaves and thus subject to their control. It became much more than a religious institution. Freedmen often met there to share information about how to protect themselves and their families. The church also became an education center where both children and adults began learning to read the Bible and the few other books that were available to them."

Although Joshua no doubt loved the Union Church, the congregation soon grew too large and diverse for a single location. The church split into three separate groups in January 1869. The Methodist Episcopal congregation founded St. James Methodist Episcopal Church at the “Union” site at 14th Street and Avenue M. Members of the African Methodist Episcopal faith founded Allen Chapel AME church on Avenue I and 11th Street a few years later. Meanwhile, Joshua and several dozen other Baptists established the First Baptist Church on 10th Street in Rogersville. It was there that Joshua emerged as a deacon and one of the city's leading figures during Reconstruction.

Although he was busy with church and business obligations, Joshua's public duties took on an additional dimension in 1867, when he was appointed as Huntsville's first African American alderman. As a well-known black Republican and the former slave of a Union sympathizer, Joshua was the type of man Republicans in Texas wanted for their ranks. He was literate; he owned his own business; and he was recognized as a leader in his local community. As the Republican Party enacted a new Military Reconstruction program to stamp out discriminatory state laws and secure a new state constitution, Joshua joined forces with the party at the local level. He was reappointed to the alderman's position in 1870 and was later elected, under the new Texas Constitution, as a county commissioner in 1878 and 1882. Perhaps his greatest political endeavor came in 1888, when he served as a member of the Texas delegation to the Republican National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.

Despite his important work in the political arena, it was in education that Joshua made his most lasting impact. He had been a founding trustee of the first African American school in Huntsville at the Union Church. He was a friend and supporter of the six freedmen--Richard Williams, Joseph Morris, Allen Justice, Green Justice, Sam Sims, and Anderson Bates--who founded a school at Grant's colony, a few miles west of Huntsville. And, Joshua Houston was among a group of thirty or so activists--including Memphis Allen, Alex Wynne, Will Mills, Strother Green, John Wilson, and William Kittrell--who founded and promoted Bishop Ward College in 1883. Although the school failed two years later, due to a lack of funds, Joshua's children and others their age received an enormous jolt from the short-lived project. In fact, it may have been at Bishop Ward that Joshua's son, Samuel Walker Houston, met Professor C.W. Luckie, who encouraged the young boy to pursue his education outside the state of Texas.

By the time Joshua died on January 8, 1902, he had been married three times -- to Anneliza, Mary Green, and Sylvester Baker -- and he had eight children. He provided a formal education for all his children and also helped them and other community members purchase land for homes, churches, and schools. Joshua's contributions made a difference not only in his life but in the lives of others who lived in Walker County.

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Folklorist John Avery Lomax toured prisons in the South to record the voices and music of those who were incarcerated there, particularly African American inmates or as his records indicate, "Negro convicts." Lomax and his son Alan, a student at the University of Texas who assisted him, visited the men's prison at Huntsville several times in the early 1930s.

Though Huntsville officials refused his request to record inmates during his first visit in 1933, he eventually received approval and returned that December with the blessing of Lee Simmons, the Texas Prison System's general manager who also wrote a letter of introduction to aid the team in gaining access to other prisons. Over the next year, the Lomaxes returned multiple times, recording at least 50 vocal and instrumental performances at Huntsville's historic Walls Unit.

Inmates, some with colorful names like Tricky Sam, Track Horse, and Little Brother, sang the blues, spirituals and works songs, and played harmonica instrumentals. Several singers were accompanied by guitar and others by the beat of ax cutting, a typical prison labor job in which inmates worked as a team to complete a task.

Not all inmates were identified by name, and the Lomaxes identified some simply as a "group of Negro convicts." Of those who were identified, at least one, V.R. Parker, was listed in prison records as a "musician." Another, Percy Ridge, was serving a sentence for assault. He was released just a month after he performed "Western Cowboy," but was shot to death in his hometown of Dallas two years later.

With the assistance of Olaf J.S. Ellingson who succeeded Simmons as manager of the prison system, John Lomax returned to Huntsville in May 1939, assisted by his wife Ruby Terrill Lomax. By this time, inmates had their own radio show, "Thirty Minutes Behind the Walls" on WBAP, and the Lomaxes consulted with the program's director before recording. William Longino, a professor at Sam Houston State Teachers College, assisted the Lomaxes at the prison. The team recorded at least nine performances including two instrumentals by inmate Pop Warner on fiddle and an imitation of a cat and dog fighting by convicted armed robber Lawrence Evans who later died in prison.

During this 1939 visit, the Lomaxes also recorded at Professor William Longino's home in Huntsville and at the nearby Goree State Prison for women.

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As part of their Southern States Recording Trip in 1939, John A. Lomax and his wife Ruby Terrill Lomax attempted to expand their catalog of folk music by incorporating a wider variety of genres, and the contributions of Huntsville resident Grace Crawford Longino reflect that effort. The Lomaxes also acknowledged Mrs. Longino and her husband for their assistance in scheduling appointments and locating musicians in the Walker County area.

The wife of William Longino, a professor at Sam Houston State Teachers College, Grace was an accomplished local figure in her own right. For her recording session with the Lomaxes, she recalled songs that she had sung with her parents, brothers, and sisters as a child living in North and East Texas. Her family had "delighted in gathering at night and on Sunday afternoon to sing." They sang while doing chores as a family and Grace also had a brother who worked as a cowboy and shared songs he learned on the job.

When the Lomaxes visited the Longino home at 1721 Avenue I (no longer present), Grace was two weeks shy of her 38th birthday. The Lomaxes' field notes indicate that she shared seven songs but only six appear to have been catalogued with "The Filly" missing from the collection. She sang sentimental songs and a children's song, among others. Most of these tunes lasted only a minute or two, with "Green Grass Growing all Around" the longest at three and a half minutes. They varied significantly from the style and content of those shared by the convicted felons at the nearby Huntsville and Goree prisons whom the Lomaxes recorded on the same visit.

After her husband died in 1947 while traveling in Mexico with his students, Grace took the position of grounds superintendent at the urging of college president Harmon Lowman. A master gardner and former head of the Huntsville Garden Club, Grace was designated "Campus Beautician" and established a small greenhouse and nursery to grow plants for her landscaping improvements.

In the early 1950s, she became director of the Sam Houston Memorial Park and Museum, which had fallen into disrepair since its opening for the Texas Centennial in 1936. She enlisted the help of an inmate labor detail from the nearby prison to carry out the work and she also successfully pursued state funding for preservation and museum expansion. Later she began the tradition of hosting a birthday party honoring Sam Houston's wife Margaret, whom she portrayed in period costume, to raise awareness of Margaret's contributions to Texas history. Grace served as museum director until the early 1970s and died in 2002.

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During the twentieth century, Minnie Fisher Cunningham (1882-1964) worked as a leading reformer on women’s issues, including voting rights and equal pay. Born near New Waverly, Texas in southern Walker County, Minnie was raised by her parents, Horatio and Sallie (Abercrombie) Fisher, to be an educated, politically-minded young woman. She earned her state teaching certificate at age sixteen, but chose to further her education at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. In 1901, she became the first woman in Texas to earn her Graduate of Pharmacy degree. She began and ultimately ended her pharmacy career in Huntsville’s downtown drug store, however, where she earned less than half of what her male counterparts made. It was this experience that she credited with “making a suffragette out of me,” and once she married B.J. Cunningham in 1902, her medical career came to an end.

Cunningham first became politically active in local volunteer organizations in Galveston, where she and her husband relocated in 1907. She began her speaking and lobbying career, while volunteering for the Women’s Health Protective Association (WHPA) and helped to found Galveston’s Equal Suffrage Association (GESA). As a delegate of GESA, she participated in the creation of the Texas Woman Suffrage Association (TWSA) and helped link it to the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). In 1915, she was elected president of TWSA, soon called the Texas Equal Suffrage Association (TESA), and it was in that role that she worked for the passage of a state bill that would allow women to vote in political primaries. Although the bill ultimately failed to pass in 1917, Cunningham and her organization used their considerable influence to help impeach the sitting governor of Texas, James E. Ferguson, for corruption. When Ferguson decided to run for governor again, despite being banned from doing so, Cunningham negotiated a deal with State Representative Charles Metcalfe and Governor William Hobby to allow women to vote in the state's primary, promising that the female vote would support Hobby in his bid to remain governor.

Despite her success during the election of 1918, Cunningham and her forces were unable to secure the passage of an amendment to the Texas Constitution that would have allowed women to vote in the state. Cunningham did not give in, however, but instead worked diligently for the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. She was part of the team that convinced Woodrow Wilson to openly support it during World War I, and she actively lobbied the Texas Legislature for immediate ratification in 1919. Following the successful campaign to secure women’s voting rights through the Nineteenth Amendment, Cunningham became the first executive secretary of the League of Women Voters and became active in progressive political causes, joining the Democratic Women’s Advisory Committee at the suggestion of Eleanor Roosevelt. She later became the first woman to run for the Senate in Texas, and though she lost in the primary, she later became the first woman to run for governor as well. In that latter race, she came in second out of nine candidates having been defeated by the incumbent, Coke Stevenson in the primary. She worked tirelessly for the implementation of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal policies and was late in life a supporter of John F. Kennedy. She died in her hometown in 1964 of heart failure.

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Huntsville’s Andrew Female College was founded in 1852 and chartered by the Texas Conference of Methodist Churches on February 7, 1853. Its creation mirrored that of Austin College, a men’s institution in Huntsville that had admitted its first class in the fall of 1850. The women’s college was named after the controversial Methodist bishop, James Osgood Andrew, whose ownership of African American slaves had caused a split in the Methodist Episcopal Church and helped to birth a new Southern branch of that denomination. Despite Andrew’s divisive reputation with abolitionists in the North, he was popular in Texas, and the residents of Huntsville were proud to name a school after him.

Andrew Female College held its first five-month session in May 1853 at Huntsville’s old “Brick Academy” under the leadership of its first president, James M. Follansbee. At a time when there were few educational opportunities for women, enrollment was high and the college soon outgrew the cramped quarters at its initial site. Local residents supported the school, however, and contributed funds for a larger, two-story building that was completed in 1855. Eighty students, primarily from Walker County and surrounding areas, were enrolled at the college in 1856-1857.

The college offered young women what was considered an appropriate education for the mid-nineteenth century. Courses focused on classical literature, languages, art, music, and domestic life. The school also hosted annual concerts and exhibitions, sponsored by the Music and Art departments. These events garnered widespread attention in Walker County, and brought guests from miles around to see the work that the young women of Texas were producing.

Led by a bevy of prominent Huntsvillians -- including Charles Keenan, Daniel Baker, Henderson Yoakum, and Thomas Ball -- the board of trustees at Andrew Female College ensured that the school operated without interruption throughout the Civil War. Despite this success, Huntsville’s disastrous 1867 yellow fever epidemic claimed the lives of the college president, several members of the faculty, and a number of the students. Although the school limped on for another twelve years after the epidemic, it never fully recovered. The opening of Sam Houston Normal Institute in Huntsville in 1879 finally caused Andrew Female College to close in 1880. The school’s property was conveyed to the city of Huntsville and reopened later that year as the community's first public school. The structure eventually was relocated and became a public school for African American children.

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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 recently-freed African-American population that had once performed the region's agricultural labor. Hundreds of Polish immigrants soon entered the Waverly community and took up work on local farms. These laborers found a religious leader in Rev. Felix Orzechowski, who established New Waverly’s St. Joseph's Catholic Church in 1869.

St. Joseph’s was the first Catholic Church in Walker County, and it served the many Polish families who settled in the area in the 1870s. Church tradition often sustained the immigrants until they adjusted to life in their new country. Services were held outdoors or in private homes during Father Orzechowski's pastorate. Soon after leaving the parish in 1876, he returned to Poland and was imprisoned by ruling Russian officials for advocating democratic ideals.

In 1877, the congregation that Orzechowski had established purchased two lots from the Texas Land Company to serve as the site for a church building. Construction of St. Joseph's initial building was overseen by Rev. Victor Linicki. The first church building was a box-frame house, approximately 20' x 30' in diameter. As St. Joseph's congregation increased, church leaders felt that a larger church building was needed. In 1892, under the leadership of Rev. Theodore Jaron, construction of a new church building began. The new church was designed and constructed by Tom Lavandorski. Mrs. Catherine Ripkowski contributed the lumber for the new building, which was cut from trees on the land that is now St. Joseph/Elmina Cemetery. The building was approximately 40'x 68' in diameter, with 12' walls. The church was dedicated on the Feast of Corpus Christi in 1897.

By 1902, St. Joseph's congregation had grown to 125 families. During this time, Rev. Thomas Aloysius Bily encouraged the congregation to construct a new church building that would accommodate the growing congregation. The church purchased the remainder of the block as well as a lot across the street. The new church was designed by the architect L.S. Green who wanted to create a grand cathedral in a traditional Gothic-style. Once constructed, the church featured large stained-glass windows, which let in the morning sun. The cruciform edifice measured 120' by 60' in diameter, and with two sections of pews, the church could seat 300 people. The new church building was dedicated on December 16, 1906. Construction lasted three years and cost $13,000.

In 1984 and 1985, St. Joseph's went through a $250,000 renovation, which replaced the tower window, eaves' crossing, and confessional. The church also purchased a new organ and nativity using donations from the community. St. Joseph's has grown considerably over the years, from 40 families in the 1860s to over 400 families today. Throughout its long and vibrant history, St. Joseph's has served a diverse parish consisting of many cultures and backgrounds. The congregation's spirit for ministry is what truly makes St. Joseph's great.

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To collect authentic, undocumented folk music, John A. Lomax and his son Alan specifically sought out "made up" songs, ones that had been created and developed by everyday people. In 1934, while searching for the local and secular music of African Americans, the Lomaxes stopped at the Smither farm, or Smithers Plantation as they called it, near the Trinity River in Walker County. There, they asked farm manager Tollie R. Gaines for his help with their project. Gaines called for one of the farm's renters known as One-Eyed Charley, but he was reluctant to sing any songs other than spirituals, even when Gaines encouraged him to share ones that the farm workers made up while plowing fields or chopping wood.

Later that evening, the Lomaxes set up their recording equipment in a building that served as a church and school-house, and several African Americans joined them. Alan attempted to prompt them by asking if anyone knew "Stagolee" and though a man named Blue said he did, he offered to share a song he had just made up that day. Blue's "Po' Farmer," Alan later wrote, was about the "tribulations of the Negro renter in the South." Once Blue stopped singing, he continued speaking and directed his comments to the President, explaining "you just don't know how bad they're treating us folks down here" and urging Roosevelt to come to Texas and do "something for us poor folks." The Lomaxes played Blue's recording back and Alan later recalled that "there was immense joy in this group because they felt they had communicated their problem to the big world."

Alan was particularly moved by Blue's comments and the crowd's response. He later wrote that his experience at the Smither farm "totally changed my life. I saw what I had to do. My job was to try and get as much of these views, these feelings, this unheard majority onto the center of the stage."

Others also performed that evening. A boy about 13 known as Butter Boy and described by the Lomaxes as a "runt" sang "Raise a Ruckus Tonight," which the Lomaxes believe originated as a minstrel song, and "Old Aunt Dinah," a fast-paced chant. A woman named Bat wearing pig tails and a straw hat sang alone before returning with three other women who formed a quartet that was, according to Alan, "far superior to any other group we had heard." They recorded three songs and were accompanied by Monroe Bowdry, a 61-year-old farmer whose vocals are prominently featured on "Tall Angels at the Bar."

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In his pursuit of folk music, John A. Lomax visited penitentiaries throughout the South specifically to document the music of African Americans that, because of racial segregation and the isolation of prison life, remained pure or relativity free of the influence of whites or popular music. In 1934, Lomax and his son Alan visited the Goree State Farm, the state prison for women just outside Huntsville, and recorded four songs by a "group of Negro women prisoners."

John returned to Goree in 1939, this time joined by his wife Ruby Terrill Lomax on their Southern States Recording Trip. There they recorded several female inmates, some in groups and others singing individually. One of the soloists, Hattie Ellis, had gained a following after appearing on WBAP's weekly radio show, "Thirty Minutes Behind the Walls," which featured inmates performing from the nearby men's prison known as the Walls Unit. According to Marcus V. Heath, Goree's general manager, Ellis once received 3,000 fan letters in one week because of her performances on WBAP.

Ellis, a native Texan in her mid-20s serving a 30-year sentence for murder, was accompanied on guitar by "Cowboy" Jack Ramsey, a white inmate, when she performed a bluesy version of "I Ain't Got Nobody" and on "Desert Blues," which she told the Lomax team that she had written.

Doris McMurray, another soloist, sang "Shine On" and "This Little o' Mine," two songs that she had learned from her grandmother in Waco. McMurray and Ellis joined other inmate vocalists on the spiritual "It's a Blessin' Jes' to Call My Savior's Name" and on the prison song "Cap'n Don't 'low No Truckin' -round in Here." Decades later, a writer for "Texas Monthly" magazine wondered if Ellis might also have written that song about "Captain" Heath, Goree's strict manager whose wife served as the prison matron.

At the time, the Lomaxes noted that "Hattie's singing is fast becoming 'throaty' as she strives to imitate the professional 'blues' singers." The next year Ellis received a conditional parole, but was returned to prison in 1955 for assaulting someone in New York, a violation of her parole.

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John A. Lomax first met Henry Truvillion, an African American in his mid-40s, in the company town of Wiergate in Newton County. Truvillion worked for the Wier Long Leaf Lumber Company which operated a large logging business in the East Texas timberlands. At that time, Lomax and his son Alan were collecting the songs of workers like miners, woodsmen and railroad laborers. Truvillion explained that because of his faith and duties as a preacher, he was reluctant to share reels or anything but spirituals.

But eventually Truvillion, a railroad track crew supervisor, did share far more than spirituals when the Lomaxes returned to Wiergate in 1934 and several years later when John and his wife Ruby Terrill Lomax visited in 1939 and 1940. In all, the Lomaxes made more than 50 recordings of Truvillion who relied on work songs, specifically calls and hollers, in his position supervising track crews for the Wier rail operations.

The Lomaxes initially recorded Truvillion in Wiergate and then at his home located in Shankleville along Highway 87 about three miles south of Burkeville. In addition to sharing spirituals and sing along songs, Truvillion provided an extensive selection of work songs that he used to direct his team of laborers in a variety of tasks. Different calls guided workers as they straightened or "lined" new track, drove or hammered spikes, or lifted heavy steel rails from a railcar to the ground. John Lomax later wrote that through Truvillion, "we secured the most complete group of railroad songs," adding that Truvillion's "authentic and artistic mastery of this medium has long been recognized by his employers for its economic value."

John Lomax's repeated visits made an impression on Truvillion's young son Jesse who as an adult recalled receiving Christmas gifts from the Lomaxes. He also remembered seeing the fine strands of "black hair" that covered the floor as records were literally were cut in their living room. "Neither man was purely ordinary," Jesse later wrote in the "Journal of Folklife Research" of Lomax and his father, who died in 1948, noting that the men "were indebted to each other" having "served each other well, considering the raw segregation of the years of their sojourn."

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During their field recording sessions in fall 1940, John A. and Ruby T. Lomax visited the Lufkin area collecting songs that ranged from gospel music to blues to popular 19th century tunes.

In Keltys, a lumber mill town then just outside of Lufkin, instead of documenting work songs they had found in other company towns and camps, the Lomaxes recorded the Angelina Four singing harmonies and spiritual music. Four African American men comprising the quartet worked for the Angelina County Lumber Company in Keltys but according to the Lomaxes' catalogued materials, the only song likely associated with their work was "Angelina Longleaf Pine," which was identified as a "singing commercial." Three of the quartet lived in the "Negro quarters," an area on the east side of Keltys for African American employees. The fourth member of the quartet, Alphonso H. Charlton, worked at the lumber mill but lived just outside Keltys.

In addition to the commercial, the Angelina Four recorded 14 other songs, including "Pullman Passenger Train," "When I Was a Little Boy," and several spirituals. On six of the quartet's gospel recordings, Bess Lomax, John's daughter who was then in her late teens, is listed as a "recordist" indicating she may have joined her father and stepmother for part of their 1940 tour.

Within the city limits of Lufkin, the Lomaxes recorded three songs performed by Lillie Cochran Stegall, a 70-year-old white woman who was married to a former teacher and justice of the peace. Stegall shared popular songs from the 19th century, including the minstrel piece, "Mary's Gone wid de Coon."

While in Lufkin, they also recorded a dozen songs with a professional musician identified as Finous "Flat Foot" Rockmore who likely spelled his last name as "Roquemore." Rockmore played guitar as he performed blues, folk music and at least one work song listed as "Levee Work Song" in the Lomaxes' records. Rockmore, who noted in 1942 that he played in "a string band about" Lufkin, also recorded two monologues which reflect John Lomax's interest in documenting oral history, an effort he emphasized while working for the Federal Writers' Project four years earlier.

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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 Houston High School in 1939. Frustrated that he could not attend the local white college in his hometown due to racial segregation, Baker took advantage of a scholarship offer at Austin’s Samuel Huston College, where he pursued a science degree. At the same time, Baker also joined the college orchestra and choir, and traveled around the nation with a sextet that raised money for the college and recruited new students. Due to the draft, however, Baker was forced to delay his schooling in 1945, while he served in the segregated Army Medical Corps in the Pacific Theater of World War II.

Upon returning to the United States, Baker enrolled at Texas State University for Negroes during the fall of 1947. He quickly completed an undergraduate degree in chemistry and returned to Huntsville to teach physical science, biology, and physics at his alma mater, Samuel Walker Houston High School. Baker became famous in local circles for his rigorous teaching style and tireless devotion to his students. Although racial segregation was strictly enforced in Huntsville, Baker often challenged the discriminatory practices and inadequate funding of his school by negotiating with his white peers for science equipment, textbooks, and other supplies. As historian Bernadette Pruitt has shown, “Baker’s determination propelled a number of his students into math and science as career choices.”

In 1962, Mance Park, the former high school football coach turned Superintendent of Huntsville’s schools, fired Baker for building a new brick home on his family’s property, which was located near several white subdivisions. As a result of his dismissal, Baker was forced to find employment outside the local community. He ultimately secured a job at the Goodyear Tire Company in Beaumont, becoming the first African American professional within the company to win promotion to chemical engineer. Baker worked for Goodyear for twenty-two years, and the financial support the job provided enabled him to launch his career of activism back home in Walker County.

Beginning in 1963, Baker played a leading role in the African American campaigns for voting rights, school desegregation, and integration of public accommodations in his local community. He formed the Walker County Voters League and, with his wife Augusta, paid the poll taxes for dozens of African Americans to vote. In fact, the group defeated the racist Walker County Sheriff, Floyd Farris, before demanding additional reforms from the white establishment.

In time, Baker emerged as a key supporter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and its affiliated group Huntsville Action for Youth (HA-YOU), backing their efforts to desegregate the downtown business district in 1965. And, perhaps most importantly, Baker pushed for public school desegregation in both the Huntsville Independent School District and at Sam Houston State Teachers College. Baker’s own daughter, Pam, endured a painful year as she desegregated the 12th grade at Huntsville High School, and Baker personally pushed John Patrick, a young man who graduated with honors at Sam Houston High School, to become the first African American student to attend Sam Houston State Teachers College in 1964. Thus, Baker devoted his life and career to wiping out racial segregation in an effort to secure greater liberty and equality for his community.

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In 1933 and 1934, folklorist John A. Lomax and his son Alan visited the Darrington prison farm to record the music of African American convicts. At Darrington, they captured not only the vocals of inmates who sang as they worked in rhythm, but also the powerful words of the prison chaplain as he delivered a sermon.

The Lomaxes recorded a prisoner identified as Lightnin' Washington, so named by his fellow inmates because he could "think faster than the Warden." Washington was under 30 and serving a second prison term. He led other convicts in several work songs, including "Good God Almighty," "Hammer Ring," and "Long John" in which members of the group kept time with ax-cutting and clapping. They also joined him by singing and humming on "God Moves on the Water," a song that recalled the Titanic disaster in 1912.

During their visit in spring 1934, the Lomaxes recorded Reverend John L. Griffin, known as "Sin Killer" Griffin, who served as a chaplain to African American inmates in the Texas prison system. Lomax explained to Sin Killer, who had attracted both blacks and whites to Baptist revivals in the late 19th century, that the recordings they made would be deposited in the Library of Congress and a "thousand years from now people can listen to words you will preach."

Griffin delivered his "Man of Calvary" sermon as part of the Easter service he held for Darrington's inmates. Those in attendance were offered bread crumbs and grapefruit juice from the commissary for communion. Griffin's sermon lasted an hour, but the Lomaxes were unable to record it in full as the disks they used only held seven minutes of sound per side and had to be turned and changed frequently. They did record the congregation singing "Wasn't That a Mighty Storm" about the hurricane that decimated Galveston more than 30 years earlier. Though Griffin is credited in most records as the singer, it is likely that the prison's unnamed songleader was actually the featured vocalist.

In 1939, John returned to Darrington with his wife Ruby T. Lomax but found that the inmates did not offer the same type of authentic music he had found earlier. Instead, Ruby noted, there were few singers and those willing to perform were "not interested in old songs or the old manner of singing."

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Searching for authentic folk music, John A. Lomax made multiple trips to the Sugar Land area in the 1930s. First in 1933 and 1934, he and his son Alan visited the Central State correctional facility to document work songs of African American inmates. Then in 1939 he returned with wife Ruby Terrill Lomax and captured religious and traditional songs performed by a Mexican-American family.

The Lomaxes's visits to Central State -- once in 1933 and twice in 1934 -- resulted in the successful collection of more than 30 songs by African American inmates. In addition, the folklorists established relationships with two of their most prolific resources, James "Iron Head" Baker and Moses "Clear Rock" Platt.

Baker told the Lomaxes that he was a habitual offender who had been convicted six times. He explained that while at another prison he earned the nickname "Iron Head" when the branches of an oak tree fell on him and he just continued working. Baker had no serious conduct violations at Central and served as a trusty. In 1936, John appealed to Governor James Allred who granted Baker a furlough and "Iron Head" joined John on a tour of southern towns searching for worker songs at prisons, camps and docks. "Iron Head" received additional furloughs even after his travel with John ended, but he eventually returned to prison for committing burglaries.

Moses Platt, or "Mose" as the Lomaxes recorded his name, told John that he was nicknamed "Clear Rock" because he had thrown rocks at a group of men chasing him, apparently with such force and precision that three of the men were killed. During his time at Central State, "Clear Rock" shared ballads, works songs and several stories with the Lomaxes and later, after he was released, John and his wife Ruby located him in Taylor and recorded him in a room at the Blazilmar Hotel in 1939.

John and Ruby also returned to Central State in 1939, but Ruby wrote that the "trip was fruitless" because the "old crowd had scattered, the new boys sang fewer of the old songs and in performance imitated radio artists." They did not even set up the equipment.

During that trip, however, they did successfully record the Lopez family at their home not far from the prison. They had heard them perform an Easter play at Our Lady of Guadalupe in Houston, but their equipment was not working correctly so they made arrangements to visit them at their home near Sugar Land.

Gonzalo and Juana Lopez, several of their children, and other family members sang the story of Dimas, the Good Thief, who died with Jesus. They attributed the words and music to a teacher in Coahuila, Mexico, who taught it 50 years earlier to Lopez family members who shared it with future generations. Gonzalo also sang three traditional Mexican songs which the Lomaxes recorded in the Lopez's living room.

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Born to Emmanuel and Helen Sterne in Cologne, Germany, on April 15, 1801, Adolphus Sterne spent his childhood in a community torn by religious and political discord. While working in a passport office at age sixteen, he learned that he would soon be conscripted into the military. Rather than submit to such service, he forged a passport for himself and left Germany for the United States. He landed originally in the port of New Orleans in 1817. Raising funds for a few years, he worked as a peddler and a store clerk until 1824. He then won appointment from the Mexican government to sell goods to soldiers stationed in Nacogdoches, a new settlement in the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas. By 1826, Sterne had established a profitable general merchandise store in the area.

Although Sterne swore an oath of allegiance to Mexico and joined the Catholic Church, he agreed in 1827 to assist Hadan Edwards and other Anglo immigrants involved with the Fredonia Rebellion against Mexico. Sterne contributed to the effort by using his contacts to smuggle ammunition and coffee from New Orleans to the rebels in Nacogdoches. When the rebellion was put down, however, Sterne was arrested and tried for treason. He was initially imprisoned at the “Old Stone Fort” in Nacogdoches before being moved to Mexico City. Later, he won his release by promising that he would never again take up arms against the Mexican government.

After his release, on June 2, 1828, Sterne married Eva Rosine Ruf, whom he had met on frequent travels to Louisiana. The two and their seven children worked and established his store again in Nacogdoches, becoming one of the wealthiest families of Texas. Their home became legendary as a refuge for such figures as Sam Houston and Davy Crockett.

In 1832, Sterne once again broke his oath to Mexico by assisting in the Battle of Nacogdoches, smuggling supplies, providing information, and even helping to bury dead enemy soldiers. A strong supporter of Texas Independence and a personal friend of General Sam Houston, Sterne travelled as an agent of the provisional government of Texas to New Orleans. Once out of Mexican territory, he was able to personally raise and finance, although he never took up arms himself, two militia companies. Known as the “New Orleans Greys,” Sterne’s men were instrumental in the battles of the Texas Revolution. In fact, he continued to help supply and assist the revolution until the victory in San Jacinto.

After Texas secured its independence, Sterne became an active leader in the Lone Star republic. He served in the Constitutional Congress of 1833 and later commanded a company at the Battle of the Neches in 1839, helping to expel the Cherokee Indian tribe from East Texas. In 1840, he became the Nacogdoches postmaster, while also serving as a deputy clerk, an Associate Justice, as a member of the Board of Health, and as Overseer of Streets for the county. He became an elected representative of Nacogdoches to the House of Representatives for the Second Legislature in 1847 and followed in the Third Legislature. In 1851, he was elected to serve in the Texas Senate. At the age of 56, Sterne passed away, most likely due to pneumonia, while on a business trip to New Orleans in March 1857. Adolphus Sterne is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Nacogdoches, Texas.

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The Rice Building at 909 Texas Avenue sits atop one of the most historic and fascinating pieces of real estate in all of Houston. Initially set aside by Augustus and John Kirby Allen for the Republic of Texas, the site served as home of the republic’s capital building from 1837 to 1839 and then again from 1842 to 1845. Later, the old capital building was transformed into a hotel, and Anson Jones, the last president of the Republic of Texas, committed suicide there in 1858.

In 1881, a new hotel was constructed on the site, and it operated for several decades until a brick, modern structure was completed in 1913. This third building is the one that remains on Texas Avenue today, and it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Opening in 1913, the Rice Hotel played host to national conventions, presidents, astronauts, and foreign dignitaries of all stripes. Known as "Houston's Welcome to the World," the hotel featured opulently appointed areas such as the Crystal Ballroom, Empire Room, Flag Room, and Roof Garden that were well-known to the city's socialites and gleefully introduced to out-of-town guests.

Times and tastes changed, however, and the increasingly unprofitable hotel was simply boarded up in the late 1970s. But, after more than 20 years of vacancy and neglect, it became one of Houston's bright examples of re-purposing, when a complicated series of public-private partnerships led to the building's successful conversion to residential apartment lofts.

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Just a minute’s drive from the 1925 county courthouse in Quitman, Texas, one may find the thoroughly modern, electric blue headquarters of the Wood County Electric Cooperative, Inc. (WCEC). Like many contemporary buildings, the WCEC headquarters was designed to meet the rigorous LEED -- “Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design” -- construction standards. While the building may appear an era apart from the organization’s 1938 office on the Quitman square, its focus on energy efficiency places it squarely in the tradition of WCEC’s past. When electricity was first introduced to the region during the Great Depression, farmers had to learn how to use the new resource effectively. In this endeavor, they received the support of the WCEC and the Rural Electrification Administration (REA).

By the 1930s, rural citizens in East Texas had been clamoring for electricity for years. Despite the demand, power companies were reluctant to expand to the countryside, fearing that the lower population density would result in lower usage and lower profits. The companies thought that the farmers would never use much power because they worked outside during the day and went to bed early at night. Adding to this misunderstanding of farmers’ needs, there were significant barriers to the electrification of the countryside. For instance, farmers were unfamiliar with electric appliances and farm equipment. Their farmhouse had no wiring. And, many of them lacked the money to pay for wiring, appliances, or a new electric bill.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration created the REA in 1935, the new agency set out to address some of the problems farmers faced. The REA offered loans for wiring and appliances, for example, and helped to fund the extension of delivery lines beyond the most populated areas of the country. With support from the REA, the WCEC electrified its lines in October 1938 and sought a $5,000 grant to institute a loan program for its members. A WCEC employee remembered wiring his home for $8 in 1939 and paying off the loan in increments of 44 cents per month with his electric bill. In fact, the local newspaper advertised loans for wiring, appliances, and farm equipment with repayment permitted when crops were sold.

Even with the encouragement of loans, WCEC had to overcome the natural frugality of its rural members to allow the widespread adoption of electricity. Some members initially resisted wiring bedrooms because they did not need light when they slept. One member even noted that she would have to sell a number of hens to pay the monthly power bill. Even so, local residents gradually bought into the program. The minimum charge set by WCEC for electricity was $1 per month for 11 kilowatt hours. Members closely watched their meters to make sure they did not go over the minimum.

The REA educated farmers to use electricity on the farm through its Farm Demonstration Tour, sometimes called the REA circus due to its large display tents. WCEC joined with other local cooperatives in January 1940 to participate in a “circus” just outside of Gilmer, Texas. The tour included displays and demonstrations of electric appliances and farm equipment. The climax of the event was a cooking contest between four male farmers using all electric appliances. Presumably, the use of male participants was intended to emphasize the ease of cooking with electricity.

Gradually, farmers learned that electricity often paid for itself as kerosene and ice expenses ceased, waste and spoilage ended, and equipment replaced manpower. Efficient electricity use in rural areas was established through rural electric cooperatives like WCEC.

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The United States Post Office in Rusk, Texas, features a Bernard Baruch Zakheim mural titled "Agriculture and Industry at Rusk." Completed in 1939, Zakheim's powerful mural illustrates Rusk's rough agrarian and industrial history from multiple perspectives. In vivid colors, the artist captures how Native American, Hispanic, and Anglo American residents of the area viewed development and change over time.

Located in Cherokee County, Rusk has a long and complicated history. In the early nineteenth century, a band of Cherokees established a tribe in the region, which was then part of Mexico. However, in the 1830s, Anglo settlers expelled the Native American tribes from the area, including the Cherokee, Caddo, and Kickapoo. They then established the city of Rusk on April 11, 1846, and named it after one of the signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence, General Thomas Jefferson Rusk. Within a few years, residents of the city constructed a Presbyterian church, masonic lodge, and county courthouse. Rusk's first post office opened on March 8, 1847. The city’s population grew rapidly throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as immigrants steadily poured in from the gulf. The Great Depression slowed Rusk's development, but the town endured because of its position as a commercial center for the region's rich iron ore deposits, timber, and agricultural industries.

Bernard Baruch Zakheim's mural "Agriculture and Industry at Rusk," completed in San Francisco in 1939, honors the city’s residents and their complex relationship with the land. Born in Poland on April 4, 1898, Zakheim discovered a love for art in his early teens. He studied furniture design and upholstery and then won a scholarship to study drawing, painting, and sculpture at the Polish Academy of Fine Art. Zakheim immigrated to the United States, and lived in both New York City and Los Angeles, before settling down in San Francisco and finding work as an upholsterer. In the early 1930s, Zakheim traveled to Mexico City to study the art of mural frescoes with famed Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. Upon his return to the Bay Area, Zakheim founded the San Francisco Artist and Writer's Union. Zakheim also won a local competition to fresco a mural at San Francisco's Jewish Community Center. He and other union members lobbied for a federally funded arts program, which the United States government eventually supported through the Treasury Department's Section of Painting and Sculpture (later known as the Section of Fine Arts).

"Agriculture and Industry at Rusk" features multiple thematic elements including farming, land surveying, displacement of Native Americans, and Anglo American settlement and expansion. The mural contains three distinct scenes: the first displays a Native American man (possibly Cherokee), wrapped in linens, sitting quietly, as a white man (arms crossed) stares down at him. The next scene features a group of farmers, including one man testing pesticide spraying equipment on a tomato crop, another examining a leaf of lettuce through a magnifying glass, as well as one farmer receiving mail from a postman. The last scene features a group of land surveyors; some men dig, while others measure land, or take notes. The three scenes demonstrate how the agricultural industry in Rusk developed through forced relocation of Native Americans, land surveying, and technological advancements in farming and crop management. Though complex and intricate works of art, Zakheim's murals were often criticized for their Communist or Socialist elements. Yet, "Agriculture and Industry at Rusk," remains a vital piece of Great Depression art, reminding its viewers of East Texas' culturally diverse and complicated past.

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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 northeastern United States, a growing demand for southern lumber and other timber products helped drive a surging business in trees. With a rail stop on the Houston East and West Texas Railroad, Lufkin soon emerged as an important hub for the timber trade. Local forests thus played a major role in the founding of Lufkin and have helped to shape the city ever since.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, federal officials with the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration selected Lufkin as the site for a large Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp that operated from 1933 to 1942. Working in association with the Texas Forest Service (TFS), the Lufkin CCC camp used progressive forestry techniques to help the East Texas forest industry. The TFS also made Lufkin the District Headquarters over many East Texas CCC camps. The district offices were located in an educational building rented from the First Christian Church located behind Hotel Angelina on Shepherd Avenue. The building is now an antiques store.

By the end of 1933, the Lufkin District was in charge of seventeen CCC camps. Some CCC camps disbanded or moved to new districts, but all of these camps were, at one time or another, under the Lufkin District: Ratcliff, Nancy, Jasper, Beaumont, Woodville, Livingston, Huntsville, Kennard, Groveton, Madisonville, Trinity, Apple Springs, Lufkin, Nacogdoches, San Augustine, Coldspring, Honey Island, Oakhurst, and Maydelle. The CCC camps of the Lufkin District employed thousands of young men during the Great Depression, paying them $30 a month, and helped over nine years of operation to make East Texas what it is today.

The men in Lufkin District camps spent their days building fire towers, bridges, culverts, and roads in order to access remote parts of the forest. These men also strung up telephone lines, planted trees, and fought forest fires. The CCC fed these men well; the Lufkin District found that new enrollees gained an average of almost four pounds in their first five weeks. The CCC camps purchased food from local ranchers, which in turn helped the local economies. Each of the Lufkin District’s camps pumped an estimated $10,000 monthly into their local communities.

The CCC abandoned the Lufkin camp in 1942, the same year that the United States government began building Prisoner of War (POW) camps for captured prisoners taken in World War II. Lufkin was home to two such POW camps. In November 1943, Southland Paper Mills leased the old CCC camp as a POW labor camp, and 300 German prisoners held there salvaged lumber and produced pulpwood for Southland Paper until 1946.

In 2008, the state of Texas erected a historical marker at the site of the former CCC Lufkin District heavy equipment maintenance facility on current day Raguet Street. The marker notes that the Lufkin camp not only proved to be instrumental in relieving unemployment in East Texas but also "contributed greatly to forest conservation in Texas."

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The story of Grant’s Colony complicates the narrative of the Reconstruction Era in Walker County, which is typically one of violence, despair, and intimidation. For while the Yellow Fever outbreak of 1867, the Walker County Rebellion of 1870-71, and the defunding of public schools in 1876, all played a negative part in the lives of those who lived in Grant’s Colony, rising literacy rates, political activism, and economic independence equally marked the experience of the 350 or so residents of the Colony.

Grant’s Colony began in 1866 when freedpeople began moving into and organizing an area of land approximately five miles east of Huntsville. The land belonged to George Washington Grant, a local elite who had made a fortune in transportation in the antebellum economy and had purchased over 11,000 acres in Walker and Grimes Counties. A 6,000-acre parcel of this, which stretched on both sides of Harmon Creek, would be the site of Grant’s Colony.

Grant’s wife, Mary, introduced him to the religious philosophy of the Church of Christ (later to become The First Christian Church) in the middle of the Civil War. This was a philosophy closely connected to that of the Quakers, and, accordingly, held a strong condemnation of slavery, a commitment to education, and a desire for racial harmony. Thus, once the Civil War had ended, Grant helped to organize a community on his land east of Huntsville he optimistically named “Harmony Settlement.”

In 1867, Grant deeded over to a twelve-member board of trustees a two-acre plot for a schoolhouse. This was at a time of considerable unrest in Texas and Walker County, as Assistant Commissioner for the Freedmen’s Bureau, General Charles Griffin, had entered into Texas politics with considerable force, removing Governor Throckmorton and replacing him with Elisha Pease, integrating the Army with the Bureau, and providing real assistance and encouragement to Bureau agents in the field to enforce the Reconstruction Acts. In Walker County, dramatic and violent scenes played out. However, Grant’s Colony became a site of remarkable safety and opportunity.

In 1869, Grant attended a Friends Meeting in Jackson, Mississippi where he met and recruited Ohioans Hannah and Edward Williams and their teenage daughter Sarah to teach in the Colony. They would stay until 1878, keeping a remarkable record of the daily life of the village. The Williams helped to build the “Colony Grove” schoolhouse and organized a Temperance Band. Hannah and Sarah were the primary teachers, and their classes totaled over 120 pupils per year. After their tenure, Edward Williams, the first African American in Walker County to obtain a teaching certificate, came in to replace the Williams. Their collective efforts yielded impressive results. Literacy levels for the census district rose from 16% in 1870 to 66% by 1900.

The Colony grew into a significant center for African-American politics as well. The first African-American representative from Walker, Polk, and Livingston Counties, Richard Williams, lived in the Colony. In the Quaker Williams’ letters, we see Richard Williams as one of the Colony’s social leaders. Later, in the 1880s, Grant’s Colony became the center of the populist movement for Walker County.

Despite the vibrancy and importance of the community, Grant’s Colony had a significant weakness in that most of the land remained in the hands of Grant, which meant that the majority of the residents of the Colony were tenants. When Grant passed away, his estate was in considerable arrears and, though he wished desperately that it be passed down to his adopted daughter, the majority of the land was purchased by his main creditor, Sallie Mae Gibbs, at a cash auction in 1900. The Gibbs continued to rent out most of the land but the political power of Grant’s Colony drained away. Little is known about what exactly led to the Colony’s total demise, but by 1936 the two churches, the schoolhouse, the political meetings, even the bridge that connected the two halves of the Colony had all been destroyed or moved. The National Forest Service purchased the Gibbs’ acreage in 1936. All that remains today are fading ruts of what used to be Main Street and Church Street, Grant’s Colony Cemetery, and a few pillars still standing in Harmon Creek.

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“Dear Mother and Father, When this letter reaches you I will be beyond the veil of sorrow. I will be in heaven with the angels…I am sentenced to be hanged for the trouble that happened in Houston, Texas. Altho (sic) I am not guilty of the crime that I am accused of, but mother, it is God’s will that I go now and in this way….”

In the wake of the largest murder trial in United States history, United States v. William C. Nesbit, thirteen Black men, including the previously quoted Thomas Hawkins, were sentenced to death by hanging with no opportunity for appeal. A white soldier from the 19th company recounted the gruesome scene stating, “The unlucky thirteen were lined up. The conductors took their places and the men for the last time heard the command, “March!” Thirteen ropes dangled from the crossbeam of the scaffold, a chair in front of every rope, six on one side, seven on the other. As the ropes were being fastened about the men’s necks, big (Pvt. Frank) Johnson’s voice suddenly broke into a hymn – “Lord, I’m comin’ home” – and the others joined him. The eyes of even the hardest of us were wet.”

Due to the United States active involvement in World War I, the brutal executions were justified under the Articles of War. Additionally, forty-one more soldiers received life-sentences, while four were given a lighter sentence, and five were fully acquitted. The charges against them were disobeying orders, aggravated assault, murder, and mutiny. Although each man maintained their innocence and submitted a not guilty plea, 169 prosecution witnesses provided testimony, compared to twenty-nine for the defense. However, the testimony did not provide conclusive evidence to indict any man, due to forceful coercion, the promise of immunity, and general unreliability. Predictably, this injustice elicited an impassioned and fiery response from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and investigative journalist Martha Gruening wrote of her findings in the NAACP-funded Crisis newspaper. In the introduction of her article, Gruening highlights police brutality as the primary reason for the 1917 Houston Riot. She then delineates the lack of arms amongst Black military police and the lax discipline amongst the ranks as contributing causes for the explosion of violence on the scorching hot summer day.

Gruening correctly observes that the events of the riot were the culmination of simmering racial tensions, sparked by the influx of Black soldiers into Houston. The 24th Infantry, composed of 654 Black men and their all-white officer group, arrived at Camp Logan on July 28th, 1917, one of the thirty-two training facilities across the United States erected in order to expedite military training. Although the majority of these men were raised in the South under Jim Crow, they expected more equitable treatment as servicemen, and many refused to comply with the racist laws. Unsurprisingly, this civil disobedience was met with verbal and physical harassment from the white community, as well as the notoriously racist police force. Black soldiers were arrested regularly for minor violations, and were referred to by racial slurs on a frequent basis, both by the police and the white soldiers and construction workers of their Camp. Ultimately, the mutual hostility reached a fever-pitch on the 23rd of August, in response to an unsubstantiated rumor involving a respected soldier. In the morning hours of the brutal day, officer Lee Sparks, known for his blatant hatred for minorities, and his partner Rufus Daniels entered the home of a minimally clothed Black woman, searching for a man accused of playing dice in the alleyway. Unable to find the man, they arrested the woman, refusing to allow her the opportunity to clothe, cursing and striking her, and accusing her of hiding the fugitive. Private Edwards, a soldier with the 24th Infantry, observed the scene and approached the officers, inquiring about the nature of her arrest, and if he could provide her with clothing. The officers immediately beat him to the ground with their weapons and arrested him.

Later that afternoon Corporal Baltimore, a military policeman from the same unit, approached the officers to question the arrest of his subordinate, as was his duty. Officer Sparks instantaneously opened fire on the Corporal, and being unarmed, he fled the scene. Eventually, he was apprehended and taken to the police station, and although he was subsequently released, a rumor spread to the Camp that he had been shot and killed by the officer. In an emotional response to the unjust events of the day, a group of soldiers recruited others in the unit to march with them to the police station with the intention to free Baltimore, if he was alive, and kill every member of the Houston police they faced. While Major Kneeland Snow and his officers were collecting all of the loose rifles and ammunition around the camp with the hope of quelling any violence, a soldier screamed that a white mob was approaching them. A group of 100 armed soldiers then began a two hour march to the jailhouse, killing fifteen white people, including four policemen. After the group killed Captain Joseph Mattes of the Illinois Guard, mistaking him for a police officer, the men dispersed under the cover of darkness, and the supposed leader of the riot, First Sergeant Vida Henry, was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. After the startling events of the 23rd, martial law was implemented on the 24th, and by the 25th, the Battalion was sent back to New Mexico.

Seven years later, the City of Houston took ownership of the land, and created a park to serve as a memorial to the soldiers who lost their lives in World War I. Notably, the memorial does not feature the Black soldiers with the 24th Infantry, whose lives were cut short due to an explosive environment, in which they had no choice but to reside. This erasure was ultimately rectified in 2017, as a group of descendants from both the soldiers and Houston police organized a rededication ceremony, complete with a historical marker to acknowledge the centennial anniversary of the events at Camp Logan. Current Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner spoke at the event, calling for “good people of all backgrounds to speak against hate and stand united”. Unfortunately, less than twenty-four hours later, the monument was desecrated with a smear of red paint, and one of the darkest moments in the history of Houston race relations was once again cast off into the shadows of obscurity.

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Freddie Deloise Goosby Evans was the first-ever African American to high kick her way across the color line in East Texas when she was chosen as a member of the prestigious Kilgore College Rangerettes. A 1973 graduate of Oak Cliff High School in the Dallas area, Evans was the Co-Captain of the Pivoteers Dance/Drill Team her senior year. Evans was number eighty out of over one hundred hopeful dancers to be lucky enough to get one of the 35 spots. She was one of the lucky ones and made the 34th line of Rangerettes. “I came down here to make it. I didn’t know anyone at Kilgore Junior College, but I just knew I’d make it no matter what,” she told Texas Monthly during an interview about her ground-breaking accomplishment. Evans was confident in her abilities as a dancer and felt it was where she needed to be.

The World-Famous Kilgore College Rangerettes of Kilgore, Texas, are known for their high kicks, precision, and poise as a dance team. The very first of its kind, the Rangerettes were founded in 1940 by Miss Gussie Nell Davis as a way to keep the rowdy fans in the stands during halftime at the Junior College football games. Entertaining fans for the first time in the fall of 1940 under the direction and leadership of Miss Davis, the team regularly performs now 80 years later at Dallas Cowboys and Houston Texans games, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City, the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, the last 5 Presidential Inaugurations in Washington, D.C., and by invitation at festivals and events all around the world.

The Rangerettes were Miss Davis’ girls, and she was very proud of what she instilled in them beyond the stage floor or the football field, explaining in an interview for Sports Illustrated “They’ll forget every dance step and drill routine I teach them, but I trust they’ll never forget the values we have here.”

Sometimes criticized for her emphasis on physical appearance and strict discipline regarding the girls on her team, Miss Davis famously retorted “that there is nothing wrong in learning self-confidence, discipline, cooperation, and the ability to perform precision dance, along with poise, etiquette, and personal grooming.” The Rangerette motto is “Beauty Knows No Pain.” Rangerettes know this and continue to live up to the expectation, even after they leave Kilgore.

Evans lived up to this as well and made the most of her time at Kilgore Junior College. She was an active student beyond the classroom and beyond her commitment as an elite member of the Rangerettes. She was selected as a Freshman Class Senator and served as a liaison between the student governing body, Student Affairs Congress (SAC), and the student body. She was one of the very first students in the newly established Fashion Merchandising course at Kilgore College, which culminated in an end-of-the-year fashion show created and run by the students themselves. Evans was also a member of the Kilgore College Sten-O-Ettes, a local organization for women business students. She was even nominated for Homecoming Queen her Sophomore year by the KC Soul Unlimited Club.

After Kilgore, Evans began a career with the United States Postal Service where she spent thirty years working in various capacities. Now retired, she continues to be an active citizen in her church as well as being named Outstanding Volunteer 2013-2014 for her continued commitment and services at the African American Museum of Dallas. In 2015, the former Rangerette was awarded for her Leadership Through Community Service by the South Dallas Business and Professional Women.

Evans returned to her alma mater in June of 2014. As the first Black woman to wear the Rangerettes’ trademarked uniform of red, white, and blue, she was asked to be the Grand Marshall of Kilgore’s first city-wide Juneteenth Parade and festivities. This day is a traditional celebration in Texas commemorating June 19, 1865 – the day American slaves were finally and officially freed in the state, almost three years after President Lincoln’s famous Emancipation Proclamation. The State of Texas adopted the holiday on January 1, 1980. Evans was excited about the opportunity and said, “It’s like making history twice. I’m doubly excited that they’re giving me this honor.” As the festivities wound down, she said that it was overall a “nice day, a nice turnout, but was long in coming.” The Kilgore celebration evolved more than three decades after Juneteenth was officially adopted as a state holiday. “That’s a little slow,” but she added that “The good thing is that it’s here. You have to make it go, you have to adapt. They did a good job putting this together.”

Evans broke through the invisible color line looming in existence for over three decades. She was chosen for the prestigious Rangerettes at a time when race relations across the nation and especially the South was still in a rocky and at times emotional transition. Miss Davis was never in opposition to the integration of her dance/drill team and said she would “be receptive when a qualified black tried out.” Evans met those qualifications and made history. When asked about her time as a member of the Rangerettes and what it meant to her both at the time and afterward, she stated, “In ’73 things were still changing and her inclusion on the line was life-changing.” “Gussie Nell Davis made me the person I am today,” Evans said, “the Rangerettes just made me a better person. I really thank her for that.”

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