Research

The His­to­ry Center’s grow­ing col­lec­tion of archival resources includes more than 2,500 cubic feet of man­u­scripts, maps, news­pa­pers, pho­tographs, oral his­to­ries, and oth­er mate­ri­als. Our read­ing room is open to the pub­lic for research dur­ing reg­u­lar hours (M‑F, 8 – 5 and S, 9 – 1). Staff will answer phone, let­ter, and elec­tron­ic queries in the order they are received.

Find­ing Guides

Find­ing Guides offer more infor­ma­tion about spe­cif­ic col­lec­tions and are help­ful tools for researchers.

Some notable Find­ing Guides avail­able online

Online Col­lec­tions

We are in the process of dig­i­tiz­ing many of our col­lec­tions and have decid­ed to make some of them avail­able to view and down­load online. Please check back often as we add to the online col­lec­tion of dig­i­tal resources.

View Online Collections

Oral His­to­ry

The His­to­ry Center’s oral his­to­ry col­lec­tion con­tains more than 350 inter­views con­duct­ed between 1954 and the present, with most from the 1980’s. Most have been tran­scribed and indexed. Life expe­ri­ences in East Texas sawmill towns and log­ging camps, espe­cial­ly Diboll and relat­ed com­mu­ni­ties, dur­ing the ear­ly and mid­dle twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry are well rep­re­sent­ed. Thad Sitton’s and James H. Conrad’s Name­less Towns: Texas Sawmill Com­mu­ni­ties, 1880 – 1942, pub­lished by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas Press in 1998, promi­nent­ly fea­tures many of these interviews.

View our down­load­able oral his­to­ry transcripts

Pho­tographs

The His­to­ry Center’s pho­to­graph­ic col­lec­tions con­tain approx­i­mate­ly 1 mil­lion images, dat­ing from the late nine­teenth cen­tu­ry to the present. Images are pri­mar­i­ly of peo­ple, places, and events in East Texas with an exten­sive rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Diboll and Angeli­na Coun­ty. Pho­tographs, while not com­pris­ing the bulk of our hold­ings, are our most pop­u­lar resources.

News­pa­pers

The His­to­ry Cen­ter holds more than 65 lin­ear feet of orig­i­nal print­ed news­pa­per issues and 700 reels of micro­film, most­ly rep­re­sent­ing Angeli­na Coun­ty from 1913 to the present. We also have a few issues from the cities of Galve­ston, Pales­tine, Pineland, and Rusk, among oth­ers. Notable col­lec­tions include:

• (Diboll) Buzz Saw, 1947 – 1952
• (Diboll) News-Bul­letin, 1953, 1955 – 1958
• (Diboll) Free Press, 1958-present
• Lufkin Dai­ly News, 1913-present
• Pineland Star, 1958 – 1959

Maps

Our map col­lec­tion con­sists of many thou­sands of maps of all sizes, pri­mar­i­ly doc­u­ment­ing East and South­east Texas. Topo­graph­ic, for­est, high­way, rail­road, land own­er­ship, and tim­ber cruise maps com­prise the bulk of the collection.

Man­u­scripts

Our fastest grow­ing archival com­po­nent is our man­u­script col­lec­tions, which also com­prise the bulk of our hold­ings. Most of these col­lec­tions remain in an on-going state of pro­cess­ing. The largest busi­ness archives include records of South­ern Pine Lum­ber Com­pa­ny and Tem­ple Lum­ber Com­pa­ny, along with their var­i­ous divi­sions and sub­sidiaries. We also have munic­i­pal records and a num­ber of fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty collections.

Geneal­o­gy

In addi­tion to the col­lec­tions above, we have a num­ber of oth­er resources that are use­ful for fam­i­ly research, includ­ing var­i­ous coun­ty and fed­er­al cen­sus records. We have fed­er­al pop­u­la­tion cen­sus records for most area coun­ties for the years 1880, 1900, 1910, 1920, and 1930. We also have nine­teenth cen­tu­ry fed­er­al agri­cul­tur­al, man­u­fac­tur­ing, and social sta­tis­tics sched­ules for area counties.

Books and Ver­ti­cal Files

The His­to­ry Cen­ter main­tains a grow­ing library of local his­to­ry, for­est, Tex­ana, and rail­road books. We also have a col­lec­tion of Diboll High School year­books and an active ver­ti­cal file col­lec­tion of region­al his­to­ry subjects.