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Located on the Old San Antonio Road four miles east of the Angelina River and fourteen miles west of Nacogdoches, the town of Douglass sits on the extreme northeast corner of the old Barr and Davenport grant called the San Patricio Ranch. Michael Costley, known as "The Father of Douglass," arrived in Texas in spring of 1832. In 1836, at the age of 27, Costley enlisted as a volunteer the Texas Army and patrolled the San Antonio Road between the Angelina and Neches rivers. In September 1836, General Houston ordered Costley and soldiers to go into nearby Cherokee territory to monitor their activities, and soon a formal assignment was made. Anticipating his new proposed town in the area to flourish, Costley had surveyor William Roark lay out the town in a square and began to sell lots. He and his partner Joseph S. Able owned the first general store named Costley & Able. A nearby river port on the Angelina shipped cotton to the Gulf and a stagecoach line was established. However, before the town took off, Costley was killed in a gunfight on November 16, 1837, by W. R. D. Speight, the first District Clerk of Nacogdoches. The town was named in honor of General Kelsey Harris Douglass, a prominent early settler and Republic of Texas Congressman. In 1840, the town consisted of a two-story stagecoach inn, two hotels, jail, drugstore, post office, saloons, and a variety of shops. The first church was established in 1837 with nine people present at the first service. Devastating fires in 1943 and 1954 impeded town growth. Although never as large as its founders intended, the town of Douglass has been a significant gateway for travel, trade and communications from west to east. (2017) |
