Name: Corrigan, Texas
Address: Corrigan, TX

Corrigan, TX RoadyGoat

Corrigan, Texas, sits right in the heart of the East Texas timber country, and that's no accident. This town has always been deeply rooted in the lumber industry. The tall, straight pines that blanket the rolling hills around here are ideal for milling, and that's what built Corrigan. Back in the late 19th century, when the railroads started pushing through the region, Corrigan became a natural hub for shipping timber out to the rest of the country. Sawmills sprang up, drawing folks looking for work, and the town grew along with the industry. Even now, you can still see evidence of that heritage everywhere, from the names of local businesses to the stories shared around the dinner table. The land is ideal for pine growth, and generations of families have passed down the knowledge of managing and harvesting this precious resource responsibly, ensuring that Corrigan will continue to be a timber town for years to come.

Corrigan, TX RoadyGoat

Corrigan, Texas, nestled in the heart of Polk County, owes its existence to the timber that once stood tall and dense across these rolling hills. While indigenous peoples, particularly the Alabama-Coushatta, knew and lived on this land for centuries before, the town as we know it began to take shape in the late 19th century, when the railroad pushed its way through the thick piney woods. The Houston, East and West Texas Railway, nicknamed the "Rabbit," arrived, and with it came opportunity. Lumber mills sprang up, drawn by the seemingly endless supply of longleaf pine. Families arrived, seeking work and a new life in this burgeoning community. The air would have been thick with the scent of freshly cut wood, the sounds of steam-powered saws echoing through the trees. Life was likely hard, but there was a sense of purpose, of building something from the ground up. General stores appeared, offering supplies to the loggers and their families. Churches and schools followed, solidifying Corrigan as more than just a lumber camp, but a true town, connected to the wider world by the iron rails that brought it to life.

Corrigan, TX RoadyGoat

Corrigan, Texas, sits nestled in the heart of Polk County, a place whose story is deeply interwoven with the East Texas timber industry. Like many towns in this region, its beginnings were humble, probably a small trading post or stop on one of the early roads carving through the piney woods. But it was the arrival of the railroad in the late 19th century that really put Corrigan on the map. Suddenly, there was a way to efficiently transport the vast stands of virgin timber to markets further afield. The town became a boomtown, with sawmills popping up to process the lumber. Families poured in, drawn by the promise of work. While I can't say exactly when it was founded, I know that the town grew up quickly around the rail lines and the mills. Like many East Texas towns, Corrigan felt the sting of the Great Depression when the lumber industry slowed. But the land endured, and even today, timber remains an important part of the local economy. The community has changed over the years, but it retains a strong sense of its history, a connection to the land and the people who built it.

Mullican, Aubrey Wilson [Moon]

1920

Moon Mullican, "King of the Hillbilly Piano Players" was born Aubrey Wilson Mullican near Corrigan or Moscow in Polk County, Texas, on March 29, 1909. He was the son of Oscar Luther and Virginia (Jordan) Mullican. He lived on his family's eighty-seven-acre farm at Corrigan during his childhood and developed his musical skills on a pump organ his father purchased around 1917. The elder Mullican, a deeply religious man, wanted his children to learn sacred music. Though Moon served as a church organist during his teens, he developed an interest in blues music and learned to play the guitar with instruction from a black farmer. Impressed also by pianists who performed in local juke joints, Mullican developed a distinctive two-finger right-handed piano style that became his trademark. Much to the chagrin of his father, he began to play for dances as a teenager and aspired to become a professional musician. When he was about sixteen years old he moved to Houston and worked as a piano player for establishments that some observers characterized as "houses of ill repute." Sleeping by day and working evenings, Mullican may have received his nickname for his nocturnal habits during this period. For a time in the 1930s he performed with his own band in clubs and on the radio in Southeast Texas and Louisiana. Later in that decade and in the 1940s he became associated with bands that performed the western swing music made famous by Bob Wills . Mullican played and sang this music with the Blue Ridge Playboys, a band that included such pioneers as Pappy Selph , Floyd Tillman , and Ted Daffan ; he later worked with Cliff Bruner 's bands, the Texas Wanderers and the Showboys. While with Bruner, a former member of Milton Brown's Musical Brownies , Mullican sang the lead vocal on the classic "Truck Driver's Blues" in 1939. That same year he traveled to Hollywood, where he played a role in the movie Village Barn Dance . He also led the band that performed with James Houston Davis during the latter's successful campaign for the Louisiana governor's office in 1944. By 1947 Mullican, who had made his first recording in 1931, had signed a contract with King Records of Cincinnati, Ohio. With King he recorded two songs, Harry Choates 's "New Jole Blon" (1947) and "I'll Sail My Ship Alone" (1950), that sold over a million copies each. The King recordings, which numbered 100, featured Mullican's smooth vocals and a piano style that merged swing, blues , honky-tonk, Cajun, ragtime, pop, and country music . During his years with the King label (1947 to 1956), Mullican had great success with such best-selling recordings as "Sweeter than the Flowers" (1948), Huddie Ledbetter 's "Goodnight Irene" (1950), "Mona Lisa" (1950), and "Cherokee Boogie" (1951), which he coauthored with W. C. Redbird. He was less successful commercially with "Foggy River," "Sugar Beet," "Well Oh Well," "Moon's Tune," "Good Deal Lucille," "You Don't Have to Be a Baby to Cry," "Rocket to the Moon," "A Thousand and One Sleepless Nights," and others. In some of the King recording sessions Mullican was accompanied by a rock-and-roll band that featured a saxophone player. In 1949 he joined the cast of the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee, where he was probably the first singing piano player to perform as a solo act on a regular basis. He remained with the show until 1955. During his career he traveled and performed across the United States as well as in Europe and Vietnam and entertained with such well-known artists as Hank Williams, Ernie Ford, and Red Foley. At one stage in his career, Mullican had his own radio show on station KECK in Odessa. He also appeared as a guest on the ABC television program Jubilee U.S.A. and entertained periodically on the Big D Jamboree in Dallas. Mullican, who in conjunction with partners owned several nightclubs in Texas, served as a supporting musician on more than 200 recordings by other performers. The legendary singer Jim Reeves was a member of a Mu

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Abbott Springs Meadows Cemetery

1835

This pioneer graveyard served the early settlement of Asia in what was previously Trinity county. In 1835, Samuel Crissman received a headright of land on Peses (Paces) Creek, and by the 1850s the community of Asia developed. W. Elias and Susan (Towns) meadows were here by 1853, joined later by the Amos and Cynthia (Johnson) Snell and James and Milley Ann (Silcox) Standley families. James Standley’s cabinet and blacksmith shops became the nucleus of the Asia community. The Abbott Springs Meadows Cemetery was likely located on either the Standley or Meadows property. In the mid-1880s, the Trinity and Sabine Railway built through the area and the Sam Allen Lumber Company of Houston constructed a sawmill at Asia. Many new residents arrived, and a school was built to serve the children of the loggers and millworkers. The decline of the lumber industry, due to overharvesting of the timber before 1910, led to the demise of the community. The earliest gravestones here are no longer legible, with several burials marked by fieldstones. The oldest dated burial, of RoxieJ. Standley, dates from January 1868. All graves face east toward Paces Creek, and native hardwoods and plants form the cemetery’s natural landscape. Tombstones reflect organizations such as masons, woodmen of the world, and KJZT (katolika jednota zen texaska, a Czech Catholic fraternal organization). Military veterans includeJames B. Standley (U.S.-Mexico war) and W. Elias Meadows (Civil War). With the decline of the Asia community the site was abandoned and became overgrown. In the 1990s, descendants of those buried here restored the community burial ground.

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Corrigan, TX (Bee County)

1835

Corrigan (Corrigan Settlement), six miles east of Skidmore on Aransas Creek in southern Bee County, was established in 1835 by Irish immigrants and received its name some thirteen years later. The community's earliest settlers included James O'Reilly and Jeremiah O'Toole; O'Toole had moved from Ireland to New York in 1825. In 1826, with hopes of obtaining land from the Mexican government ( see MEXICAN TEXAS ), O'Toole and O'Reilly visited the area on Aransas Creek. After returning to New York, O'Toole took his family aboard the New Packet , which arrived in Texas in 1829. Five years later he acquired 12,000 acres on Aransas Creek. In 1835 the family built a home at a site on the San Patricio-La Bahía road. The area's early settlers attempted ranching but were hindered in their efforts and sometimes forced to flee in the face of Indian attacks and raiding Mexicans. When O'Toole's daughter, Ellen, married Irish immigrant John Corrigan in 1848, the couple built their home on O'Toole's land, and the hamlet that developed was subsequently named Corrigan Settlement. In 1871 Ellen (O'Toole) Corrigan and her brother Martin O'Toole transferred to the bishop of Galveston several acres for a Catholic church and cemetery; the Sacred Heart of Jesus Church and the Campo Santo cemetery were constructed at the site. In 1898 the settlement had a school with one teacher and ten students. By 1936 the community had four or five scattered dwellings. The cemetery, marked by a state historical marker, remained in 1990, when several families resided on nearby lands. At that time the area was still referred to as Corrigan.

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Corrigan, TX (Polk County)

1881

Corrigan is at the junction of U.S. highways 59 and 287 and Farm roads 352 and 942, about 100 miles north of Houston in north central Polk County. Although for several years a few sawmills and farms had been established in the area, the real impetus for community settlement came in 1881, when the Houston, East and West Texas Railway was completed through northern Polk County. The town was named for Pat Corrigan, conductor of the first train through the newly developed site. In 1882 the Trinity and Sabine Railway was also built through the town. Lumber companies, drawn by the good rail connections and huge pine forests, greatly expanded their operations in the Corrigan vicinity; in 1881-82, for example, seventeen sawmills, including the Allen and Williams mill, operated nearby. As the mills continued production, churches and a variety of businesses, including hotels, stores, and gins, opened at Corrigan. A post office opened at the community in 1883; nine years later the Corrigan Index , the first of several newspapers to be published there, printed its first issue. The local economy was diversified by a bottle works, stone quarries, sand pits, and continued agricultural production (especially of cotton, tomatoes, poultry, stock, and dairy products). This diversity allowed Corrigan to withstand periodic depressions in the lumber industry, like the one that closed area sawmills between 1904 and 1907. Timber nonetheless remained the mainstay of the town's economic and social structure. Particleboard plants and the Edens and Burch sawmill, leased by the Corrigan Lumber Company in 1946, proved particularly important. The weekly Corrigan Times , begun in 1953, continued to publish in the 1980s. The town's population, which numbered 461 in 1900, grew to 1,420 in the early 1950s before declining to 986 by 1960. Subsequent growth, however, nearly doubled the population by 1985, when some 1,770 persons lived in the incorporated town. In 1991 the population of Corrigan was reported as 1,816, with sixty-one businesses. In 2000 the population was 1,721, with 114 businesses.

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Corrigan, Town of

1860

Located in piney woods of east Texas. Founded about 1860 by landowner and settler James B. Hendry, who donated property for original townsite. When the Texas & New Orleans Railroad was built through area in the early 1880s, a prosperous timber-based economy developed here. The town was named for T. & N. O. official, Pat Corrigan. In 1884 the Trinity & Sabine Timber Company platted town, and soon a hotel, blacksmith shop, several stores, and a 10-pin (bowling) alley appeared. Today lumber, ranching, and farming undergird economy.

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P. B. Maxey Home

1860

Built early 1860s on a 160-acre tract by P. B. Maxey, farmer and rancher. Constructed of pine logs, using pegs, square nails, and hand-riven shingles, house had two rooms and a kitchen. Remodeled 1947, the home is still in Maxey family. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1968

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Corrigan, Texas

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Corrigan, TX RoadyGoat

Corrigan, TX RoadyGoat

Corrigan, TX RoadyGoat

Mullican, Aubrey Wilson [Moon]

Abbott Springs Meadows Cemetery

Corrigan, TX (Bee County)

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