The History of Hughes Springs, Texas

In 1839 Reece Hughes, an early settler and cotton planter from Tennessee, built the first cabin in the area near three mineral springs. The waters were first called Chalybeate Springs for their iron content, but they soon became known as Hughes Springs — and the name passed to the settlement that grew up around them.

The springs were more than a landmark. In the nineteenth century, mineral waters were prized for supposed health benefits, and Hughes Springs drew visitors seeking a cure as well as farmers working the surrounding land. Reece Hughes lived out his life here, dying at Hughes Springs in 1893 and being buried in the family cemetery just east of town. His name still anchors the community he founded.

Hughes Springs became a town when the rails arrived. In 1876 the East Line and Red River Railroad was built through the southwestern corner of Cass County, and Hughes Springs became a station on the line and began to grow. A post office opened in 1878, and the community incorporated in 1903; by 1920 its population had reached 831.

The early economy was built on farming and small industry — saw and grist mills, cotton gins, and even a sweet-potato curing plant established in 1925. The area also held significant iron-ore deposits, and an iron furnace operated nearby in the 1850s before closing, hampered by the cost of hauling fuel. That iron in the ground would matter again in the next century.

The town's biggest leap came during and after World War II. The Lone Star Steel plant opened just to the west in Morris County during the war, drawing on the region's iron ore and spurring chemical plants, road-building operations, and other collateral industry. Hughes Springs grew with it — the population climbed from the hundreds in the Depression years to roughly 1,445 by the 1950s.

Today Hughes Springs is a quiet town of around 1,600 people, proud of its Mustangs and known across the region for its springtime Wildflower Trails of Texas festival. Like much of East Texas, it has weathered hard days — including an EF2 tornado that struck in November 2022 — and rebuilt, carrying its mineral-springs origins and steel-town heritage into the present.