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Railroads did more than any other material development to create the world we live in today. They shaped our cultural landscape and brought revolutionary change unlike anything the world has known before. For centuries the fastest that any person, thought, or idea traveled was only as fast as a horse could run or a ship could sail. The railroad annihilated space and time and birthed the telecommunications industry along its rights-of-way. Even adoption of standard time, spread across four time zones, was a direct result of these unprecedented advances in travel and communication.
In East Texas, as elsewhere across America during the nineteenth century, railroads connected existing communities and created new ones almost overnight. In Angelina County, the cities of Lufkin, Diboll, and Huntington simply did not exist before the railroad?s arrival.
This exhibit features only a portion of the Center's growing collection of photographs showing the railroad in East Texas life. Of course railroads and the forest products industry enjoyed a synergistic relationship from the beginning, and this fact is not overlooked in our selection of images.
Photographs in the exhibit include Angelina County Lumber Company Engine No. 110; Temple Lumber Company Engines 6 and 17; Southern Pine Lumber Company Engines 11, 13, 20, 28, and 1007; Texas Southeastern Railroad Engines 3, 4, 5, 10, 14, 22, and 1007; Texas State Railroad Engine 300; Moscow, Camden & San Augustine Engine 6; Southern Pacific Engine 630; the Houston East & West Texas Railway depots at Burke, Diboll, and Lufkin; a Texas State Railroad seasonal convict work train; river trestles; and many others. Also included are a couple sound recordings of East Texas steam locomotives.
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