OAKDALE, TEXAS (Polk County). Oakdale is a rural community located on U. S. Highway 59 about four miles northeast of Livingston in central Polk County. The settlement began in 1854, when pioneer Samuel E. Bigham migrated from his home in Charleston, South Carolina. Accompanied by his family and slaves, he established a home in the oak forest, from which was derived the name Oakdale. Other early settlers included the Mills, Bright, and Legett families. The Legetts donated land for a cemetery in Oakdale in the late 1800s, and the earliest marked grave in Legett Cemetery is that of Jesse H. Legett who died in 1897. By the early twentieth century, the region's dense timber had attracted a noteworthy lumber industry. In 1909 the Texas Long Leaf Lumber Company operated a mill in Oakdale. A country school was open during the first part of the twentieth century, and highway maps during the 1930s labeled the region as Oakdale School. By the late 1900s Oakdale Baptist Church served the tiny community. In 2000 the population was twenty-five.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: A Pictorial History of Polk County, Texas, 1846-1910 (Livingston, Texas: Heritage Committee of the Polk County Bicentennial Committee and the Polk County Historical Commission, 1976; rev. ed. 1978).

Laurie E. Jasinski