Year Built: 1955
Architect: Wilbur Kent
The Angelina County Courthouse is Located in Lufkin, Texas, its county seat.
The area that is now Angelina County was originally occupied by agricultural Indians of Caddoan and Atakapan-related stock. The county was named for a Hasinai Indian girl who, according to Spanish legend, helped early Spanish missionaries of the area around 1690 and was called Angelina by them. Settlers who came to the county in the early nineteenth century found Indians of the Hasinai branch of the Caddo confederacies. The Hasinai, to which the Indian girl’s group belonged, had an abundant food supply and a complex social organization.
The first deed on record, dated May 10, 1801, conveyed 5½ leagues of land to Vincente Micheli from Surdo, chief of the Bedias Indians, in exchange for a white shirt, eight brass bracelets, a handful of vermilion, a fathom of ribbon, a gun, and fifty charges of powder and ball.
Angelina County was the only county in East Texas, and one of only a handful of other Texas counties, to reject secession in 1861. This election result was a sharp contrast to Tyler County, its neighboring county, who supported secession by a 99 percent vote.
Robert Allan Shivers was an American politician who served as the 37th governor of Texas. Shivers was a leader of the Texas Democratic Party during the turbulent 1940s and 1950s. Allan was born in Lufkin, the seat of Angelina County in East Texas, Shivers was educated at the University of Texas at Austin and earned a law degree in 1933. In college he was a member of the Texas Cowboys, the Friar Society, and served as the student body president.
Historical Marker 6988:
On the evening of March 2, 1913, an explosion destroyed the Houston, East & West Texas Railroad depot at this site, disrupting the town’s vital source of transportation and trade. Although a body was not discovered, it was presumed a railroad employee had been killed in the mishap. He was later declared legally dead and his stepmother collected on his insurance. In 1916, however, he was returned to Lufkin by Judge E.J. Mantooth, a local attorney acting on behalf of the insurance firms. The railroad employee stood trial for insurance fraud, but was subsequently acquitted.
Personal Visit note: We visited this one in December and the Christmas lights were up. The courthouse, and the decor were pretty unimpressive.
