Panola County Texas

On June 30, 1841, the Fifth Congress of the Republic of Texas created the Panola District for judicial purposes. The First Legislature of State of Texas created the county of Panola on March 30, 1846, and the county had its organization election July 13, 1846. 

Panola comes from an Indian word meaning cotton. Judge John Allison was a Mississippi cotton-grower from a county called Panola in Mississippi. In 1846 when he became a leader in the creation of this new county in Texas, which also had soil conducive to growing cotton, he asked that the county be called Panola. Cotton immediately became Panola County's main cash crop. 

In an election held in August 1848 the voters of the county chose Carthage. New county officers were also elected, and Chief Justice Thomas G. Davenport met with his first court session at Carthage on September 12. At that time, Carthage was little more than a location in a virgin forest of short-leaf pine, oak, hickory, and dogwood. 

Logging intensified in the area after 1885, when a narrow-gauge log railroad out of Longview built into the county. In 1888 it was upgraded to standard gauge, and its tracks were extended into Carthage. The line eventually became part of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway. Tying the area to national markets, the railroad also encouraged the development of the area's mineral wealth.
[Excerpted from: Leila B. LaGrone, "PANOLA COUNTY," Handbook of Texas Online; Published by the Texas State Historical Association]

PANOLA COUNTY COURTHOUSE