HARDIN, TEXAS (Liberty County). Hardin is at the junction of State Highway 146 and Farm Road 834, forty-eight miles west of Beaumont in east central Liberty County. It grew up after the construction of the Beaumont, Sour Lake and Western Railway, when the heirs of the influential Hardin family donated land for a townsite. The plat was filed in August 1907 by W. F. Hardin, a railroad officer, and R. C. Duff, president of the Western Townsite Company. In 1920 the local post office was changed from nearby Walter to Hardin. By that time Hardin had several stores, a cotton gin, a school, and two churches. The population was eighty. In 1935 the Hardin oilfield was discovered west of town. Other deposits were subsequently found in new fields throughout the area, thus sparking further community growth. Residents voted to incorporate their town in 1971. The population, estimated at 200 during the 1930s, reached 779 by 1980. Thirteen businesses served Hardin during the mid-1980s. In 1990 the population was 563, and in 2000 it was 755.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Miriam Partlow, Liberty, Liberty County, and the Atascosito District (Austin: Pemberton, 1974).

Robert Wooster