Woodville & Tyler County History

According to the 2000 census, Tyler County had a population of 20,871, consisted of 936 square miles with a density of 22.3 per square mile, compared to 79.54 statewide, and ranked 110 among the 254 counties in Texas.

Texas grew from 16.9m in 1990 to 20.8m in 2000 for a 22.8% increase;  during this same time, Tyler County grew from 16,646 to 20,871 for a 25.4% increase.  For more on Woodville, Tyler County, and Texas, see the following links:

www.census.gov/census2000/state/tx.html

www.state.tx.us for Texas in general

www.twc.state.tx.us for Texas business

Local Historian Wrote the Following

Tyler County is located in South East Texas, in the north-central section of the Big Thicket, and occupies a diverse and unique niche in the geological, ecological, and archaeological environs of our part of the world.

The present area has most of the seven or eight divisions of the Big Thicket with all their varied plant cultures, including huge forests of both hard and soft woods, and the industries for processing them.  Between the vast timber stands are rolling hills with lush pastures filled with some of the world’s finest cattle and horses.  Many fine, quiet retreats are occupied by some of the worlds finest people and several old reprobates.

The geological history of the area has been one of uplifts followed by savage erosion, subsidence, and inundation by large inland seas, some times fresh, some times salty.  These warm nutrient rich waters have supported huge colonies of marine life which left behind great lime stone deposits.  The subsequent eroding of the shore lines and the carrying of great quantities of silts, muds, sands, and small pieces of rock to the sea by ancient rivers left slates, sand stone, and brecciated conglomerates.  Within these are multitudes of fossils of all kinds, both flora .and fauna and in places saturated with oil and gas.  Some of the northern part of the area is covered with great deposits of volcanic ash which is also full of fossils.

The unconsolidated sand trapped between the layers of rock and impervious clays form tremendous aquifers feeding multitudes of springs and seeps spawning many spring branches and creeks.  The Neches River on the north line of Tyler County meanders along the south side of the remnants of the Catahoula Uplift.  This was the last major uplift, and it left a high range of mountains.  This range was made up entirely of soft sedimentary material, most of which has eroded away, leaving behind the hills just to the north of us.  This erosion deposited some thirty thousand feet of sediment in the Sabine Basin to our south.  Formations that are fifteen thousand feet deep just south of Beaumont come to the surface in the north part of the County.

We have timber, oil, gas, fullers earth, and rock production.  In the past there was salt production from the near by salt water seeps;  the open kettle method was used.

There were a large number of Aboriginal settlements in the area from at least 14,000 years in the past, the last of which were the Alabama-Coushatta people around the 1780’s.  In 1767 the Spanish under the Marques de Rubi followed a trail from Los Adaes, then the Capital of Texas, to Orcoquisac Mission at the mouth of the Trinity River:  a scribe mentions that the trail was full of stumps so they were on an old road.  This trail crossed the Neches at what became Belts ferry at Fort Teran and came through central Tyler County. By 1834 there were between 25-30,000 Anglos in East Texas, by a Mexican census of 1814. 

The eastern part of Tyler County was a part of the Municipality of Bevil until Texas won its independence and became a part of Liberty County, which was known as the Menard District with its seat of government at Town Bluff.  At the first session of the Texas Legislature after entering the Union, April 4, 1846, Tyler County was created.  By degree, an election would be held to chose a site for a county seat, and three sites were named: Town Bluff, Wolf Creek Settlement, and a site in the forks of Turkey Creek.  After the election, the Turkey Creek site was selected, and that became Woodville.

The county was named for U.S. President Tyler, and Woodville for George T. Wood, a Texas state senator who, with N.B. Charlton, got the bill through the Texas legislature.  For a time, the county seat remained at Town Bluff.  The commissioners court minutes for February 19, 1849, say that court was held at Woodville, and authorized the payment of the contractor for the construction of the Court House.  In March of 1856, a new courthouse was authorized, and the old building sold.  In November of 1890 another courthouse was authorized and accepted in the spring of 1892.  The building was renovated to the present style in 1936.