HICKSBAUGH, TEXAS. Hicksbaugh, four miles southeast of Warren in south central Tyler County, was probably established in 1917 by the Loderick (or Lodwick) Lumber Company at the same time that the East Texas and Gulf Railway was chartered. The name of the town came from the names of the mill owners, S. B. Hicks and J. T. and J. P. Wurtsbaugh. The mill company owned almost all the stock in the East Texas and Gulf Railway, which was originally intended to serve the lumbering communities of Hicks, Hyatt, Hicksbaugh, and Wurtsbaugh. Eventually about four miles of track were laid from Hicksbaugh to nearby Hyatt, a Texas and New Orleans Railroad station, but the project never developed beyond that. A post office was established at Hicksbaugh in 1918; Chester McGee, Forest Baker, and James Wurtsbaugh were early postmasters. The lumber mill at Hicksbaugh ceased operating in 1928, and the railroad line that served it was abandoned in 1934. From the mid-1920s to the mid-1930s Hicksbaugh reported a population of 500 and one or two businesses. Its post office continued until the late 1930s, when mail service was transferred to Warren. By the late 1930s Hicksbaugh had a population of 250 and two businesses. By 1978 the community's population was reported as sixty. In the mid-1980s a few families still lived in the area, and although some maps still showed its name, the community no longer had a center of any sort, and the name Hicksbaugh was rarely used locally.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Lou Ella Moseley, Pioneer Days of Tyler County (Fort Worth: Miran, 1975). S. G. Reed, A History of the Texas Railroads (Houston: St. Clair, 1941; rpt., New York: Arno, 1981).
