First Came the Railroad: 1870 and 1871

The original site of Longview lay in the western outskirts of the pioneer rural community of Earpville (pronounced as "Arpville") in Upshur County.

Earpville was initiated about 1850 by a local landowner named James Earp. It eventually consisted of a handful of farmhouses, a blacksmith shop, the predecessor of First Methodist Church, a residential post office (until 1868), one or two stores, and a stagecoach stop and campground.Those buildings were strung out along the Marshall-Tyler Road (later Marshall Avenue), approximately between the later Center Street and Alpine Road.The nearest towns were Gilmer, Marshall, Tyler, and Henderson. Other country settlements of the future Gregg County that had post offices in the late 1860s were Pine Tree (centered on Pine Tree Cumberland Presbyterian Church), Point Pleasant (predecessor of Gladewater), New Danville  (predecessor of Kilgore), Camden (site of the later Easton), and Omega (at the north end of the county).

The Marshall-Tyler Road followed the high ground along the north edge of the Sabine flood plain as far west as the later site of Gladewater.It was an extension into Texas of the main east-west road and rail corridor across the Deep South that was later traced by U.S. Highway 80 and Interstate Highway 20.After the Civil War, when Northern capital allowed the Southern Pacific railroad to head toward California from the pre-war rail terminus at Marshall, the track naturally ran close to the Marshall-Tyler Road.The planned route included Tyler, Dallas, and El Paso.

Railroads typically established depots at favorable existing settlements about ten miles apart, profiting from development of land around the stations.Accordingly, the Southern Pacific laid out a town site surrounding a depot at Earpville.A 100-acre rectangle was acquired on April 7, 1870, in advance of track construction, from a farmer named Ossamus Hitch Methvin.His home was near the top of Rock Hill, immediately north of the 100 acres, at what would be approximately 415 North Center Street.The initial plat of city streets and lots was filed in May, 1870, at the Upshur County courthouse in Gilmer.To attract investors and speed development of the locality, streets were given a metropolitan width of 100 feet, and a more appealing name than Earpville or Methvin was chosen."Longview," implying farsighted plans, was inspired by the scenic view to the south and west from Rock Hill.

Sale of lots in the 100 acres began in September of 1870.Toward the end of the next month, the Southern Pacific bought another 50 acres from Methvin to extend its town site further west.The resulting 150-acre rectangular layout was planned so that an extension of the central north-south street passed next to Methvin's house.The Longview post office was established on January 27, 1871.It was located in a city block which was entirely owned by United States Senator J. Webster Flanagan, a Republican of Henderson.That block lay immediately south of the track, between Fredonia and Center Streets.Flanagan had been elected as lieutenant governor in 1869, then chosen as senator by the state legislature early in 1870.The first Longview postmaster, appointed by President U.S. Grant, was 23-year-old Oliver Hazard Pegues, Jr.He came from a prominent pioneer family of Peatown on the opposite side of the Sabine River.Commercial train service at Longview began on February 22, 1871, with great celebration.

Three months later, on May 17, 1871, Longview became the first incorporated city in the future Gregg County.A plat filed in the Upshur County deed records on November 13 of that year shows the city boundaries as one mile square, aligned due north-south and east-west and centered at the intersection of Tyler and Center Streets.The southeast corner of the city limits was marked by a large post oak tree near what became the northwest corner of Melton and Houston Streets.Within that 640-acre square, the railroad company's 150-acre town site forms an approximate square, aligned the same way and centered close to the same point.The track and streets in the company site are rotated 22 degrees clockwise from due north-south and east-west.A few streets are shown extending straight outside the 150 acres, reaching several lots described as "surveyed, sold, and settled by individuals."

Postwar Reconstruction in Texas had officially ended in April of 1870, when the Texas delegation was admitted to Congress and the military government yielded its authority.However, a shadow of Reconstruction still lay across the state in 1871.Like the U.S. congressmen and senators, the legislature and governor were Republican, having been elected in 1869 when voting was controlled by the Republican-dominated U.S. army of occupation.The new civilian government was backed by a powerful state police force.The "Enabling Act" state law of 1870 authorized Governor Edmund J. Davis to appoint city officials.About 87 cities appear in the list for which Davis appointed mayors, aldermen, and marshals until 1873-including Tyler, Marshall, and Jefferson-but not Longview