Town of Craft

On June 14, 1897, the first carload of tomatoes ever shipped from Texas left Craft. The rail line there began as the Rusk Transportation line, linking Rusk and Jacksonville in 1875; it became the Kansas and Gulf Short Line in 1881, then the St. Louis, Arkansas and Texas in 1887 and the St. Louis Southwestern of Texas in 1891. At its height Craft had a depot, a church, a three-teacher school, two general stores and two tomato-packing sheds. The post office closed in 1929, and the town had about 50 residents in 1925.

What the plaque says

Town of Craft Known first as Independence, the town of Craft grew up in the 1890s on the railroad. When a post office was established in 1891, the name Craft was chosen to honor Thomas J. Craft, first postmaster and community leader. In 1896, C. D. and S. H. Jarrat and W. R. Stout began commercial tomato growing and production here. By 1917, 90 percent of Texas' tomatoes were shipped from this area. The town declined in the 1930s but is important for its early role in the East Texas tomato growing and shipping industry. (1985)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Caddo Mounds State Historic Site — 23 mi
  Three earthen mounds of an ancestral Caddo village and ceremonial center on the old El Camino Real, settled about A.D. 800 and still sacred to Caddo people, with a grass house and visitor center.
• Texas State Railroad Excursion Train — 23 mi
  A round trip of about 25 miles of track between the Palestine and Rusk depots through the Piney Woods, on a line built by prison labor and reopened as a tourist railroad in 1976.
• New London Museum and Cenotaph — 28 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.

More markers nearby

• Old Rusk Tramway — 1.0 mi
• Lon Morris College — 3.5 mi
• Church Founded by Chaplain Nicholas A. Davis, C.S.A. — 3.6 mi
• Jacksonville Independent School District — 3.7 mi