DOUGLASS, TEXAS. Douglass, on the Old San Antonio Road^qv four miles east of the Angelina River and fourteen miles west of Nacogdoches in Nacogdoches County, was originally settled about 1829. In 1836 Michael Costley^qv laid the town out around a square on an 800-acre tract purchased from John M. Durst.^qv It was named for Gen. Kelsey Harris Douglass,^qv a prominent early settler who established several businesses at the site. By 1836 Douglass had a stagecoach inn owned and operated by John R. Clute. At one time it supported numerous businesses, including a gristmill, a tannery, a sawmill, a brick kiln, and a cotton gin. Residents had a church, a school, and a Masonic lodge. Early in the twentieth century a teachers' school operated in Douglass for two years. By 1927 the town had a large community hall with electric lights. Two big fires, one in January 1943 and one in January 1954, occurred in Douglass. In 1980 and 1990 the town comprised a post office, two businesses, a school, and a population of seventy-five. The population remained the same in 2000.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Nugent E. Brown, comp., The Book of Nacogdoches County, Texas (Nacogdoches, 1927). Richard W. Haltom, The History of Nacogdoches County, Texas (Nacogdoches, 1880; rpt., Austin: Jenkins, 197-?).

Harold T. Purvis