Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > The Lighter Side

ROAD TRIP: A BBM Game

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MaineWriter:
Uncertain, TX

With a name like Uncertain - it's appropriate that even the origin of the name is unclear. Two stories are offered in the Handbook of Texas and one is as good as the other. One is the "uncertainty" of the residents as to whether they belonged to the U. S. or the Republic of Texas since the boundary is formed by the lake. The other story is said to come from riverboat crews who never certain if their boats were firmly anchored. This story has credit since the town was once known as "Uncertain Landing." A third story claims that the difficulty of maping the region left surveyors "uncertain."

The community has always had strong economic ties to the outdoor activities. As early as 1900 a "rod and gun" club was in operation - known as the Uncertain Club. The logging of cypress trees and the fishing kept Uncertain's economy afloat through the 40s and tourism has been the mainstay every since.

In 1961 the town incorporated to allow the sale of alcohol. Most Uncertainites operated tourist-related businesses. In 1988 the estimated population was 189 which has declined to 150 in 2000.

Leslie

jpwagoneer1964:
New London , Tx

NEW LONDON, TEXAS. New London is on State Highway 42 twelve miles south of Kilgore and 122 miles southeast of Dallas in Rusk County. As a result of the westward expansion of the southern frontier, a post office, called London, was started here in 1855. With some interruptions it served the area until 1876. The next year a school, now named West Rusk, was established in London. From 1855 to 1930 London depended upon agriculture. Farmers grew principally cotton and corn and supplemented their income with watermelons, peaches, and tomatoes. They shipped these products from the community depot, known as Norfolk, on the Henderson and Overton Branch Railroad, a spur of the International-Great Northern.

In 1930 Columbus M. (Dad) Joinerqv drilled the first well in the East Texas oilfieldqv a few miles from the community, making it a boomtown. Residents built a modern school, churches, and homes. A new post office was established there in 1931. When community residents found that a London post office had already been established in Kimble County, they used the name New London. In 1931 Humble Oil and Refining Company moved 100 families from the Corsicana oilfield and their district headquarters to New London. Refineries were constructed. Oil companies provided jobs, housing, electricity, and free gas and water; they also built parks and community buildings. Nothing remained unchanged, and many landowners became wealthy. The London school expanded and consolidated with smaller schools. On March 18, 1937, however, the school exploded, in the worst school disaster in United States history (see NEW LONDON SCHOOL EXPLOSION). Within a year the facilities had been rebuilt. New London continued to boom until World War II.qv

During the 1950s oil companies changed their objectives. The East Texas oilfield began to decline. In the New London area, the drilling of wells was replaced by the care of pipelines and the installation of pumps. Derricks no longer dotted the skyline. Oil companies abolished the housing camps and utilities. Some people moved away, but others stayed and built homes. New London entered a new era. Before the discovery of oil, permanent residents were those people who derived their income from agriculture and to a lesser extent from local business and education. Now oilfield workers, previously considered transients, became permanent residents. In 1963 New London became incorporated and began providing municipal services. The population level remained relatively stable-899 in 1970 and 942 in 1980. Many residents were retired oilfield workers or had jobs with oilfield service companies, the nursing home, or West Rusk High School. In the early 1990s New London had twenty-six businesses and a population of 916.

Mark

Meryl:
Nuxtepec, Mexico

moremojo:
Cuero, Texas

--the county seat of De Witt County. Home of the Cuero Turkeytrot, and the birthplace of my mother and her twin brother.

MaineWriter:
Onalaska, TX

Onalaska, a historic village in Polk County, is a name that seems to have floated into East Texas from somewhere else. First-time visitors naturally ask if it came from Alaska.

This year, as Onalaska celebrates the 100th anniversary of its founding, townspeople are discovering more about their past, including the fact there are four Onalaskas in the United States -- all with connections to the same family.

The story begins with lumberman William A. Carlisle, who opened a sawmill at Onalaska, Wisconsin, in 1893. The town’s name came from an old Aleutian Indian word, “Unalaska,” meaning “dwelling together harmoniously.”

Carlisle and his son were so smitten with the name that in 1894, when they opened a second sawmill in Arkansas, they adopted it for the community around the mill. And in the early 1900s, when the Carlisles came south to Polk County, Texas, to build still another sawmill, they founded a third Onalaska near the Trinity River.

In 1909 the Carlisles decided to build yet another sawmill. They selected a site in Lewis County, Washington, and for a third time confiscated the Onalaska name.

William Carlisle bought 150,000 acres of virgin timberland in Polk County in the early 1900s and hired L.O. Jackson to oversee the construction of a mill. Jackson favored sites on Choates and West Tempe creeks, but they were opposed by landowners.

Jackson had looked at a location near the Trinity River and ruled it out because of large, pesky mosquitoes that plagued nearby residents. But, with the rejection of two other locations, he was forced to pick the river plot.

To combat the mosquitoes, Jackson built the sawmillers’ homes with screened windows and doors -- the first such houses in Polk County. But the mill workers claimed the screened houses were too hot and began cutting holes in the screens. When Jackson asked a worker why he had cut two holes in a screen door, the man said he had a cat and dog who had the run of the house. “But why two holes?” asked Jackson. The man snapped back, “When I say scat, I mean scat. And they need two holes to get out.”

Jackson had been warned by local residents that floods on the Trinity were “deep enough to hide a smokestack”. Jackson had the mill built on the highest ground he could find and, sure enough, a flood in 1908 almost reached the community.

The completion of the mill in 1907 attracted a railroad, the Beaumont and Great Northern, which was extended to Livingston a year later to connect with the Houston, East and West Texas Railroad, which served towns and sawmills from Houston to Shreveport.

The Carlisles also built Polk County’s first concrete sidewalk, as well as churches, a hospital, a post office, a school and other amenities for the sawmill families. By 1908 the town had two hotels, a depot, a bank, an electric power company and a population of about 2,000.

Carlisle’s decline as a lumbering center began when the virgin forests were cut over and in 1909 the Carlisle mill was sold to West Lumber Company. But floods from the Trinity River and a lack of suitable sawlogs led to the mill’s closure in 1913. An excellent collection of photographs from the old sawmill days is on exhibit at the town’s library this month as Onalaska -- one of four Onalaskas still “dwelling together harmoniously” -- celebrates its centennial.

Leslie

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