Oliver H. Pegues

Gregg County's postmaster list names the first Longview postmaster as Oliver H. Pogue, appointed January 27, 1871. The office was first established in Upshur County and moved to Gregg County sometime between 1872 and 1874. The next appointments were J. Manning Taylor in August 1871, Thomas M. Coleman in May 1872 and John S. Lacy in March 1874. The Stephen F. Austin State University Heritage Center, which also calls him the first postmaster, says Longview incorporated in June 1871.

What the plaque says

Oliver H. Pegues (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 became the town's first postmaster, Jan. 27, 1871. Pegues served as Gregg County Treasurer, 1875-1900. A merchant and banker, he was an early leader of the First Baptist Church. He was married first to Henrie Dyer (d. 1887) and later to Emma Overton (1856-1929), and had 8 children. (1976)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• East Texas Oil Museum — 11 mi
  A Kilgore College museum that rebuilds the 1930s oil boom in a full-scale Boomtown with a general store, drugstore and newspaper office, plus dioramas, films and antiques given by East Texans.
• New London Museum and Cenotaph — 21 mi
  A volunteer-run museum beside the pink granite cenotaph for the March 1937 school gas explosion, holding a model of the school, a blackboard from that day and an odorizer device.
• Starr Family Home State Historic Site — 22 mi
  Maplecroft, the 1871 Greek Revival house Frank Starr built in Marshall, with Ruth Starr Blake's glass and china, an 1880s kitchen restored in 2019 and a retirement home built for a formerly enslaved person.
• Harrison County Historical Museum — 22 mi
  Galleries in Marshall's 1901 courthouse that run from the Caddo to the present, with Wiley College, Lady Bird Johnson's inaugural gown and a military gallery across the square in Memorial City Hall.

More markers nearby

• Gregg County — 0.5 mi
• Bethel Baptist Church — 0.6 mi
• 1919 Longview Race Riot — 0.6 mi
• General John Gregg — 0.6 mi