Gregg County, Texas
Longview is home to 70 official Texas Historical Commission markers — each one telling a piece of the city’s story. Browse the markers below, then find them on the map and discover more nearby with RoadHistorical.
Formed from Rusk and Upshur counties. Created April 12, 1873; organized June 28, 1873. Named in honor of General John Gregg (1828-1864). Delegate to Secession Convention and to the Provisional Congress of the Southern…
View on map ↗Thomas Mitchell Campbell (1856-1923), a native of Rusk, worked in the Gregg County clerk's office in Longview before becoming a lawyer in 1878, the same year he married Fannie Bruner. This small frame cottage served as…
View on map ↗(1828-1864) Star and Wreath Born Alabama. Came to Texas 1854. Judge, Confederate congressman. Organized 7th Texas Infantry as colonel 1861. Captured at Fort Donelson, Tenn. 1862. Promoted brigadier general after…
View on map ↗Named for "long view" from Rock Hill when surveyors laid off townsite in 1870. Incorporated June 24, 1871. Became county seat of Gregg County; also railroad, agricultural and lumber center. Its history includes an 1894…
View on map ↗Built by a pioneer physician, Dr. J. N. Allison, who brought some materials from Virginia. Bricks made by slave labor from clay on building site. Located nearby is Lathrop Discovery Oil Well, extending famous East Texas…
View on map ↗Constructed in 1871 for hardware merchant Franklin L. Whaley and his wife Mary Caroline Rogers, this was one of the earliest homes built in Longview. Five generations of the Whaley family have lived here. Built in a…
View on map ↗Large colonial home built 50 yards north, 1854. Overnight stop on Wm. T. Brooks' stagecoach line from Monroe, La., to Tyler. From here, mail went to Earpville, a site now in Longview. Slaves hewed lumber, made the…
View on map ↗Built in 1874, two years after town was established. A fireplace in each room, a stairway of carved walnut. Builder J. C. Turner, Sr., was first East Texan to import jersey cattle. Skilled horseman, thoroughbred owner.…
View on map ↗Built 1872. Owned since 1885 by Judge J. N. Campbell and family. Kept open house for Texas judiciary, clery and young people. Negro string band played for dances. The judge's brother, Governor Thomas M. Campbell, was a…
View on map ↗At this site, 1861-65, settler Joseph M. sparkman manufactured shoes for the Confederate Army. A victim of arthritis, he lay on his cot and ran the shop, while "Uncle Ben," a skilled slave shoemaker who had come with…
View on map ↗One of few remaining houses of Earpville (early Longview). North boundary of tract on Wm. t. Brooks' stagecoach line from Monroe, La. to Tyler, Texas. Built before 1882, when it was purchased by Latimus and Mary Teague,…
View on map ↗After years of undaunted faith in discovery of oil in East Texas, B. A. Skipper, Sr., assembled an 8300-acre block under lease; made a deal with J. E. Farrell, W. A. Moncrief and E. A. Showers; had the well drilled to…
View on map ↗In 1821 near this site, Cherokee Indians blazed a trail from near Nacogdoches, Texas, to their home reservation at White River, Ark. They slashed trees, cleared path, planted "Cherokee" roses, and established camps at…
View on map ↗A bloody day (May 23, 1894) in early Longview. Bill Dalton, leader of armed gang presented a note for money at First National Bank. A gunfight erupted when Sheriff Jack Howard, City Marshall Mat Muckleroy and citizens…
View on map ↗Early Victorian cottage built 1898 by John Finch on site of family's log cabin. Descendents active in community life. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1967
View on map ↗(1883-1958) Respected Longview citizen. Married Clara Harris, daughter of Gregg County pioneer family. Active in civic affairs, first elected to public office, 1910, as city marshall and district clerk. County sheriff…
View on map ↗(1896-1967) One of America's giants of journalism. Newsboy, reporter, advertising manager, foreign correspondent, editor-publisher. Born in New Market, Tenn.; came to Texas in youth. Founded Commerce "East Texan", 1919.…
View on map ↗The community of Fredonia was founded by Haden Edwards, a land grantee who contracted in 1825 with the Mexican government to establish 800 families of settlers in East Texas. A later misunderstanding with Mexico caused…
View on map ↗Texas' first native governor (1891-1895), James Stephen Hogg, founded here in 1871 his first newspaper, the Longview News. He was then 20 years old. In his paper Hogg was a strong supporter of educational and…
View on map ↗Organized in 1847. First church in Gregg County; one of oldest in Texas in continuous service. Named for large pine tree (now removed) under which services were held and where Mrs. A. T. Castleberry taught the first…
View on map ↗(Affiliated with Presbyterian Church, U.S.) Founded Dec. 2, 1881, by the Rev. J. DeWitt Burkhead, evangelist. Elders: L. P. and S. F. Henderson and Curtis Mackey. Deacon: J. L. Henderson. Other organizers: C. N. and…
View on map ↗(November 27, 1847 - March 30, 1937) Descendant of a Huguenot family who migrated to america in 1736, Oliver H. Pegues came to Texas with his parents from his native Mississippi in 1850. He moved to Longview in 1871 and…
View on map ↗Established here by the United States Army in 1942, Harmon General Hospital was named for Colonel Daniel W. Harmon (1880-1940), a medical officer in the regular Army. 220 buildings were rapidly constructed on the…
View on map ↗(Oct. 29, 1846 - May 15, 1916) In 1855 Alabama-born John Tyson Smith moved with his parents to Upshur County, Texas. A Confederate veteran, he settled in Longview about 1872. He served as city tax assessor and was…
View on map ↗This residence was constructed in 1902 by the Rev. W. B. Allen for Dr. William Davis Northcutt (1861-1931). A prominent Longview physician and mayor of the city for four terms, Dr. Northcutt played a vital role in the…
View on map ↗In response to the East Texas oil boom, Delta Drilling Company was founded in 1931 by Bob Stacy, Sam Dorfman, and Joseph Zeppa. Originally housed in an apartment at this site, the firm moved to Tyler in 1937. Delta…
View on map ↗Built in 1910 to house the Citizens National Bank, this structure is the only example of classical revival commercial architecture in Longview. Designed by noted architect and educator Samuel J. Blocker, the Everett…
View on map ↗About 1848, O. H. Methvin (1815-1882) and his father Richard came to Texas from Georgia. O. H. Methvin bought about 1,200 acres in East Texas, including this site, which was his cornfield. He built a home on nearby Rock…
View on map ↗This church traces its history to a Disciples of Christ congregation (Christian Union Church) organized near Camden in 1852. When that church disbanded during the early 1870s, its members formed new congregations in…
View on map ↗(March 10, 1815 - February 9, 1882) Georgia native O. H. Methvin came to Texas about 1848 with his wife Margaret and his father, Richard R. Methvin. They settled on land in Upshur County which would later become a part…
View on map ↗First known as St. Mark Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, this congregation was organized by former slaves about 1867. Worship services were held in a brush arbor built at the present site of Magrill Park. The Rev.…
View on map ↗This congregation has been in continuous existence since 1871, when fifteen people led by the Rev. D. S. Snodgrass gathered together to form a new church. In 1874 the Texas and Pacific Railway Company deeded two town…
View on map ↗(November 30, 1888 - June 1, 1969) A native of Richford, Vermont, Robert G. LeTourneau built his first industrial plant in Stockton, California, in 1921. A self-educated man, he invented and pioneered the use of…
View on map ↗This site was once within the boundary of the community of Earpville, settled in the late 1840s by James Earp (d. 1861) and many of his relatives from Alabama. Located on a stagecoach line, the settlement at its height…
View on map ↗Before the United States entry into World War II following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, ninety-five percent of the crude oil delivered to East Coast refineries was transported by tanker ships. Ninety…
View on map ↗This community originated in the 1870s with the junction of the Texas & Pacific and International & Great Northern Railroad tracks. Churches, residences, hotels, restaurants, businesses, boardinghouses, and school…
View on map ↗The first public school offering high school classes in Longview was built in 1880. A larger school building was erected in 1884 to accommodate an expanded student enrollment. The Longview Senior High School Complex,…
View on map ↗The Rev. Richard Perry and nine deacons organized this church in 1874. Services were held under a brush arbor on land donated by the Rev. Perry and his wife Betty until a sanctuary was erected later that year. A Sunday…
View on map ↗This church was organized in 1875 by 12 charter members. The congregation met in a schoolhouse until a frame sanctuary was built later that year on land deeded to the church by the Texas & Pacific Railroad Company.…
View on map ↗This church was established by nine resident members of the Old School Southern Presbyterian Church as a mission in the new town of Longview in 1872. The first church building was erected on land donated by the Texas…
View on map ↗Soon after organizing in 1934 Longview's federation of Women's Clubs began raising funds for a community center. The Federation produced matching funds for an appropriation of the Gregg County commissioners court to…
View on map ↗This church traces its origin to Methodist camp meetings held here in the farm community of Winterfield as early as the 1870s. The site of the camp meetings, which drew settlers from Gregg, Upshur, and Harrison…
View on map ↗This cemetery was associated with the New Providence Missionary Baptist Church, which was founded in the 1880s. The first documented burial was of W. E. Newton in 1896. In 1903 the church was damaged by a windstorm,…
View on map ↗This cemetery began on the farm purchased in 1879 by July G. and Martha Howard Garner. Land was set aside for a family cemetery upon the deaths of the Garners' nephew, Joel S. Bright, and niece, Jessie L. Webb, in…
View on map ↗Authorized by the U. S. Army n 1942 and named for Col. Daniel Warrick Harmon, Harmon General Hospital was in operation from November 1942 to December 1945. This ecumenical chapel opened in January 1943. Protestant,…
View on map ↗Gregg County was formed in 1873 and Longview was chosen as county seat. The first temporary courthouse was a small building at the corner of Fredonia and Tyler streets. It soon proved inadequate, however, and another…
View on map ↗Pine Tree Cumberland Presbyterian Church began sponsoring Sunday School classes in the Spring Hill Schoolhouse after 1887. The Rev. W. M. Allen began to preach there on Sunday afternoons in 1891. The Rev. J. M. Robinson…
View on map ↗In the 1870s the people of this community met in the Lawrenceville School for Christian worship services. Thirteen local Baptists organized their own church in 1883, continuing to meet in the school building. Founding…
View on map ↗This house was constructed in 1885 or 1895 for local merchant B. F. Lewis and his wife, E. A. Lewis. In 1905 the Lewises sold their home to James Knox Bivins, a Confederate veteran and lumberman, who presented the deed…
View on map ↗Longview Municipal Building and Central Fire Station The city of Longview was incorporated in 1871, and there is evidence of a volunteer fire department as early as 1887. A new city hall complex with fire station was…
View on map ↗The Grove The Grove was a natural timber stand within what became Longview in 1870. Tradition holds that the area's freedmen gathered in the Grove for worship services as early as the 1860s. In 1871, John R. Magrill…
View on map ↗M.H. Graybill acquired land here in 1888. He set aside a tract to be used as a burial ground for local African American sharecroppers and their families. In 1910, Graybill (the cemetery spelling changed over time) sold…
View on map ↗Following the Civil War, emancipated slaves established the Freedmen's community of Pleasant Green. On December 20, 1871, pastors Henry Moses and Charles Anderson led local residents in organizing a Baptist…
View on map ↗The vast East Texas oilfield was discovered in October 1930, and wells were soon located across the field in five Texas counties. Drilling was expanded to include the Sabine River bed, which was owned by the state of…
View on map ↗In 1880, St. Anthony parish was established in longview with circuit-riding priests providing church services. In 1884, a frame structure was built, serving the congregation until 1940 when a new facility was…
View on map ↗BUILT IN 1930 ON GUM STREET, LONGVIEW NEGRO HIGH SCHOOL SERVED AS A SECONDARY SCHOOL FOR AFRICAN-AMERICANS. IN 1946, IT WAS DESTROYED BY FIRE, AND A NEW 16-ROOM SCHOOL WAS BUILT AT BOYD AND LUCKETT STREETS. THE SCHOOL’S…
View on map ↗SUMMERFIELD METHODIST CHURCH WAS BUILT IN 1869 ON LAND DONATED BY PARSON B.W. BROWN WHO WAS ALSO LARGELY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE FORMATION OF GREGG COUNTY. NAMED AFTER A CHURCH THE BROWN FAMILY HAD ATTENDED IN ALABAMA, THE…
View on map ↗DAVID SUTTON MEREDITH WAS BORN ON FEBRUARY 2, 1869 IN BRUNSWICK COUNTY, VIRGINIA. MEREDITH CAME TO RUSK COUNTY, TEXAS IN 1891 AND MARRIED MINNIE BURR FISHER, A NATIVE OF BERLIN, TENNESSEE. THEY MOVED TO LONGVIEW IN…
View on map ↗David Sutton Meredith, Jr. was born in Longview on July 22, 1902. After graduating from the University of tTxas, he began practicing law in Longview in 1926. That same year, he was elected county judge of Gregg County.…
View on map ↗JERUSALEM BAPTIST CHURCH IN THE 1850s, MOST SLAVES HAD CONTACT WITH ORGANIZED CHRISTIAN CHURCHES AND AFTER EMANCIPATION A GREAT NUMBER OF AFRICAN AMERICANS BECAME BAPTIST BECAUSE THEY WERE FREE TO ESTABLISH THEIR OWN…
View on map ↗…and 10 more Longview markers. Find every one of them on the map in the RoadHistorical app.
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