A City that Expands its Influence: 1960 to 1970

The last decade of Longview's first hundred years was a time of historic and fundamental change for Longview as for the whole country.

To most Americans, the pivotal event of the era seemed to be the assassination of President Kennedy in November of 1963. For citizens of Longview, changes seemed especially concentrated in 1962, 1963, and 1964.

It was in 1962 that the "slant-hole scandal" brought unfavorable national attention to cities of the East Texas Oil Field and clipped the wings of many local investors. Beginning in 1948, close to a billion dollars' worth of oil had been produced by independent operators through nearly 400 wells slanting into the pool from outside. Though plainly illegal, the practice was previously tolerated.

In the following year, 1963, Longview began to transform from a centralized city to a diffuse one. Until then, the city limits were essentially where the city met the country. Inside, there were mostly businesses, housing subdivisions, and city water and sewers. Outside, there were mostly farms, water wells, and septic tanks. But in 1963, Longview reached far west of its own developed area and engulfed the unincorporated community of Greggton, including a great deal of the predominantly white Pine Tree Independent School District. Suburban sprawl had finally taken hold.

Two major forces drove that population shift throughout the country. One was desegregation of public schools. Under a court order, some black first-graders in Longview began attending formerly white schools in the fall of 1963. The plan was to integrate one grade at a time from the bottom up, on a neighborhood basis. In the fall of 1965, however, LISD was required to speed integration by proceeding also from the twelfth grade down. At the same time, the Judson community's predominantly white school district was annexed by Longview's. Finally, in the fall of 1970, the student body of black Womack High School was merged with that of Longview High School. Simultaneously, LISD was ordered to begin busing children outside their neighborhoods to promote racial balance. Despite a bombing incident at the school bus barn, the transition on the LHS campus was peaceful. Later milestones of racial equality came in 1974, when Clarence Bailey became the first black member of the Longview school board, and in 1978, when James E. Johnson became the first black member of the Longview City Commission. Johnson also served later as county commissioner.

The other principal factor of suburbanization was the ever-increasing reliance of Americans on automobiles. The main token of that trend in Longview was the construction of Loop 281, which began in 1964. The loop was justified mainly on the basis of relieving congestion of traffic passing through the city on U.S. Highway 80. Veering far into the northern and eastern outskirts and encompassing the former Greggton, Loop 281 mainly served instead to promote decentralization of the city's development. The real relief of Highway 80 traffic was provided by Interstate Highway 20. Local planning for it began in 1962, and construction through Gregg County was completed by 1968.

Longview's main industrial addition of the decade was the Schlitz (later Stroh) brewery, built between 1964 and 1966 on 140 acres in the middle of a tract that had earlier been laid out as a housing subdivision called Village LaMond. Credit for winning Schlitz for Longview was accorded to Robert Cargill, who succeeded Carl Estes as chief industrializer of the city. Schlitz management cited the quality of Longview's Cherokee Lake water as a major factor in their location decision.

The city's leaders were dreaming big in the sixties. LeTourneau Tech became LeTourneau College in 1961. Longview's Boyd Ridgway began developing a shopping mall in 1968 on 110 acres lying west of Eastman Road between Marshall Avenue and the railroad. Unfortunately, Ridgway became overextended by trying to develop Broadway Square Mall in Tyler at the same time. Ray Nasher of NorthPark Mall in Dallas took over both projects, completing Tyler's and killing Longview's, which remained a desert for many years. Another sign of the decade's exuberance was the completion of a comprehensive city development plan by Marvin Springer and Associates of Dallas in March of 1969. It painted a glowing picture of an ideally balanced, symmetrical city of 116,000 by 1985. Actual population grew to 46,744 by 1970, an increase of 17% for the decade.

Longview celebrated its centennial in May of 1970 with a ten-day festival that seemed to involve every citizen. The thriving central business district had become so choked with automobile traffic that most streets had been made one-way. There were hopes for a new high school; a civic center with coliseum, theater, and convention hall; and a historical museum, oilfield museum, and antique car museum. After a hundred years, Longview had finally outgrown its comfortable image as a small town.