Palestine: Railroad Hub, Steam Trains, and Dogwood Trails

Palestine, the county seat of Anderson County in deep East Texas, was established in eighteen forty-six on a hundred-acre plot donated by two early settlers. The name came by way of Palestine, Illinois, which had itself been named for the biblical Holy Land, a common pattern among town-namers of the American frontier who drew on religious geography for civic identity.

For most of the nineteenth century, Palestine grew slowly as an agricultural and courthouse town. Then the railroads arrived, and Palestine became a different kind of place entirely. In eighteen seventy-two, the International Railroad and the Houston and Great Northern Railroad met in Palestine. The following year they merged into the International and Great Northern Railroad, and Palestine found itself at the junction of two major lines. The company built its first major engine and coach repair facility here in eighteen ninety-two, making Palestine one of the most important railroad maintenance hubs in Texas.

Out of that railroad infrastructure came one of the more unusual heritage attractions in the state. In eighteen eighty-three, the Texas state government began using inmates from the Rusk Penitentiary to build a railroad to haul materials into and out of the prison. The line between Palestine and Rusk, twenty-five miles away, became the Texas State Railroad. The state eventually converted it to a tourist operation, and today vintage steam and diesel locomotives make the run through the East Texas Piney Woods on a track designated as the Official Railroad of Texas. It has been featured in more than thirty films and television productions.

In the nineteen thirties, Palestine found a second identity in its landscape. Two women sharing coffee in nineteen thirty-eight discovered that the dogwood trees covering the surrounding hills bloomed spectacularly each spring. They organized a tour. Twenty thousand people showed up for the first one. The Dogwood Trails festival grew from that afternoon, and the Texas Legislature formally designated Palestine the Dogwood Trails Capital of Texas in May of twenty twenty-three. Davey Dogwood Park, covering two hundred and fifty-four acres at the edge of town, hosts the bloom each spring.