Early years Evidence of settlement in the area dates back to 10,000 years ago. Nacogdoches is on or near the site of Nevantin, the primary village of the
Nacogdoche tribe of
Caddo Indians. The name, Nacogdoches, originates from the
Caddo-speaking
Native American tribe "Nacogdoche", and the area remained a Caddo Indian settlement until the early 19th century. In 1716, Spain established a
mission there,
Misión Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, the first European construction in the area. The "town" of Nacogdoches got started after the French had vacated the region (1760s, following the
French and Indian War), and Spanish officials decided that maintaining the mission was too costly. In 1772, they ordered all settlers in the area to move to
San Antonio. Some were eager to escape the wilderness, but others had to be forced from their homes by soldiers. It was one of the original European settlements in the region, populated by Adaeseños from Fort
Los Adaes. , Nacogdoches, Texas Colonel
Antonio Gil Y'Barbo, a Spanish trader, emerged as the leader of the settlers, and in the spring of 1779, he led a group back to Nacogdoches. Later that summer, Nacogdoches received designation from Spain as a
pueblo. Y'Barbo, as lieutenant governor of the new town, established the rules and laws for local government. He laid out streets with the intersecting
El Camino Real (now
State Highway 21) and La Calle del Norte/North Street (now
Business U.S. Highway 59-F) as the central point. On the main thoroughfare, he built a stone house for use in his trading business. The house, or
Old Stone Fort as it is known today, became a gateway from the United States to the Texas frontier.
1800s The city has been under more flags than the state of Texas, claiming nine flags. In addition to the
Six Flags of Texas, it also flew under the flags of the
Magee-Gutierrez Republic, the
Long Republic, and the
Fredonian Rebellion. People from the United States began moving to settle in Nacogdoches in 1820, and Texas's first English-language newspaper was published there. However, the first newspaper published (in the 1700s) was in Spanish. An edition of that newspaper is preserved and shown at the local museum. In 1832, the
Battle of Nacogdoches brought many local settlers together, as they united in their stand to support a federalist form of government. Their successful venture drove the Mexican military from East Texas.
Thomas Jefferson Rusk was one of the most prominent early Nacogdoches Anglo settlers. A veteran of the Texas Revolution, hero of
San Jacinto, he signed the
Texas Declaration of Independence and was secretary of war during the
Republic of Texas. He was president of the Texas Statehood Commission and served as one of the first two Texas U.S. Senators along with Sam Houston. He worked to establish Nacogdoches University, which operated from 1845 to 1895. The
Old Nacogdoches University Building was added to the
National Register of Historic Places in 1971.
Sam Houston lived in Nacogdoches for four years prior to the Texas Revolution (1836) and opened a law office downtown. He courted Anna Raguet, daughter of one of the leading citizens, but Anna rejected him after finding that he was not divorced from his first wife
Eliza Allen of Tennessee. William Goins (Goyens, Goings, Going), the son of a white mother and
black father, operated a local inn, trucking service, and blacksmith works and maintained a plantation outside Nacogdoches on Goins Hill. He was married to a white woman and owned slaves. He was appointed as an agent to trade with the
Cherokees and was prominent in providing assistance to the Texas Army during the Revolution. of
Adolphus Sterne, the first mayor of Nacogdoches, now a museum and library
Adolphus Sterne was a merchant of German Jewish extraction who maintained the finest home in town. His frequent visitors included Sam Houston, Thomas Rusk,
Chief Bowles and David Crockett, so his diary is one of the best sources for early Nacogdoches history. Nacogdoches also contains one of the last surviving family-owned homestead plantations in East Texas, the August Tubbe Plantation, owned and operated by the same family which established it in 1859. August Tubbe was a German-born immigrant, who with his elderly mother, left Germany in 1858 and arrived in Nacogdoches by 1859. Their lives are recounted in several books, including a historical fiction novel by Gisela Laudi entitled "I am Justina Tubbe". Tubbe plantation is historically significant in the formation of early life in East Texas, not only in its cotton and sugarcane, The estate and archives are privately owned and maintained by a descendant of its original founder, and are currently available for study through private appointment only. The Tubbe family is considered to be one of the "founding families" of Nacogdoches, but also is credited with bringing the now defunct
Texas and New Orleans Railroad spur into town. Tubbe estate as a whole is now owned and managed by Thomas VonAugust Tubbe-Brown, the fifth-generation grandson of August Tubbe. In 1859, the first oil well in Texas began operation here, but it was never so well known as
Spindletop, drilled in 1901 near
Beaumont. Lyne Taliaferro Barret began this operation, which was interrupted by the
American Civil War. However, after the war, Barret returned to Oil Springs, an area about east of Nacogdoches, to resume his project by acquiring another drilling contract in 1865. Barret struck oil on September 12, 1866, at a depth of . The well produced around 10 barrels of oil per day, but was recorded to produce a range of 8 to 40 barrels. In 1868, the
price of oil dropped so low that Barret lost his financial backing, and was forced to resign from the project. The fields then lay dormant for another 20 years, until 1889, when various drilling companies had 40 wells on the site. The site was never very productive, only yielding 54 barrels in 1890. However, it remains the first and oldest
oil well in Texas, with production being recorded into the 1950s.
1900s–present In 1912, the
Marx Brothers came to town to perform their singing act at the old Opera House (now the SFA Cole Art Center). Their performance was interrupted by a man who came inside shouting, "Runaway mule!" Most of the audience left the building, and when they filed back in, Julius (later known as
Groucho) began insulting them, saying "Nacogdoches is full of roaches!" and "The jackass is the flower of Tex-ass!" Instead of becoming angry, audience members laughed. Soon afterward, Julius and his brothers decided to try their hand at comedy instead of singing, at which they had barely managed to scrape together a living. A plaque commemorating the event is posted in downtown Nacogdoches. On January 4, 1946,
a violent tornado devastated part of the city, killing ten people and injuring 200 others. Tornado expert
Thomas P. Grazulis estimated the intensity of the tornado to have been F4 on the
Fujita scale. In the edition of March 8, 1950, of
You Bet Your Life, Marx said, "I was once pinched in Nacogdoches for playing
euchre on the front porch of a hotel. It happened to be on a Sunday. You're not allowed to play euchre in Nacogdoches on a Sunday. As a matter of fact, the way I played it they shouldn't have allowed it on Saturday, either." Marx would often mention Nacogdoches in the show if any contestant came from Texas. In 1997, singer
Willie Nelson came to Nacogdoches to perform with his friend, Paul Buskirk, a
mandolin player. During his stay, Nelson recorded a number of
jazz songs at Encore Studios. In 2004, he released those recordings on an album called
Nacogdoches. On February 1, 2003, the
Space Shuttle Columbia broke up during re-entry, depositing debris across Texas. Much of the
debris landed in the Nacogdoches area, and much of the media coverage of the recovery efforts focused on Nacogdoches. On September 24, 2005,
Hurricane Rita struck Nacogdoches as a category-1 hurricane. Nacogdoches experienced the same problems
Houston was having because of the unprecedented number of people evacuating the Houston-Galveston area. The city's local shelters were already overwhelmed with evacuees who had come from
New Orleans because of
Hurricane Katrina. Long lines at gas stations and shortages of supplies, food, and fuel were widespread. Many Houstonians took the
Eastex Freeway (
U.S. Highway 59) (future
Interstate 69) out of Houston to evacuate through East Texas. As a result of Hurricane Rita, U.S. Highway 59 has been designated as an evacuation route by
TXDOT, with all of its lanes to be used for
contraflow traffic. Nacogdoches was designated as the north-end terminus of the contraflow/evacuation route. On September 13, 2008,
Hurricane Ike struck Nacogdoches as a category-1 hurricane. Nacogdoches hosts the Texas Blueberry Festival on the second Saturday in June. The community is one of the first Texas Certified Retirement Communities. The community celebrates a host of other events year-round which can be found by going to visitnacogdoches.com Once a
Democratic stronghold, Nacogdoches has in recent years moved steadily toward the
Republican Party, being represented in the
United States Congress and the
Texas State Legislature by Republicans. The city, in general, is very moderate with the co-existence of students of Stephen F. Austin with a liberal left-of-center persuasion and conservative right-of-center city residents. Nacogdoches has been in the Texas Main Street Program since 1998. Nacogdoches' downtown was named the "Best Historic Venue" by
Texas Meetings and Events magazine. Nacogdoches was nominated as one of the "Friendliest Towns in America" by Rand McNally and
USA Today. Nacogdoches is the headquarters of the Texas Wing of the
Civil Air Patrol, the
Air Force Auxiliary. ==Geography==