Timpson

Timpson's early years ran on timber and cotton. A post office opened in 1885 with James H. Blankenship as first postmaster. The Handbook of Texas gives the town about 1,200 residents in 1890, with two sawmills, a weekly newspaper and a canning factory, and says it was incorporated by 1892. Lignite mined nearby was shipped from Timpson by 1925, and the boom of the 1920s lifted the estimate to 2,500 by 1927. The boom collapsed in the 1930s and the population slid until 1968, when it was estimated at 1,050.

What the plaque says

Timpson In 1884, Houston businessman Paul Bremond (1810-1885), and other investors began planning for a new railroad to connect Houston and Shreveport, Louisiana. Surveys soon began along the proposed route, and in 1885 the town of Timpson was founded, named for Paul C. Timpson, the railroad official who laid out the town. The Houston, East and West Texas Railroad, a narrow gauge system, was soon a reality, and the first passenger train arrived in the new town on August 1, 1885. The first businesses in the new town were two stores, separated by a pine thicket which would later be cleared for use as the town square. Within a year, the population had grown to 1,000. Within the first year of Timpson's founding, a school was begun, and churches and fraternal organizations were organized. Many businesses were established, including a newspaper; grocery, drug, and other retail stores; an ice company; factories; and banks. The town became an important East Texas lumber, cotton, and rail center, as well. Railroads continued their important role in Timpson until the 1940s, when development of state roads and highways decreased the use of rail shipments. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tex Ritter Museum and Texas Country Music Hall of Fame — 18 mi
  Carthage's country music museum, with Tex Ritter's boots, guitars and saddles in a room styled like a movie theater, and exhibits on other Texas stars, Jim Reeves among them.

More markers nearby

• George Washington Green — 4.3 mi
• Walter Prescott Webb — 10 mi
• Woods New Hope Baptist Church — 11 mi
• Milton Irish — 12 mi