Malakoff, Texas

The first settlement here predates 1835. The Handbook of Texas says Jane Irvine, a widow from Alabama, built a gristmill on Caney Creek, and the community was first called Caney Creek, then Mitcham Chapel in 1852 after a Methodist church. Around 1854, postal officials in Washington suggested the name Malakoff, after a Russian fortification in the Crimean War.

When the railroad came through Henderson County in 1880, a new townsite grew up about a mile and a half south along the line. By 1904 it had nine general stores, and the First State Bank of Malakoff opened in 1908. Malakoff incorporated in July 1948.

Coal changed Malakoff. Lignite was discovered in 1912, several mines opened and consolidated under the Malakoff Fuel Company, and a Texas Power and Light generating station drove fast growth. According to the Handbook of Texas, the population rose from 750 in 1920 to 1,200 in 1930 and 2,168 in 1940.

The boom didn't last. TP&L converted the station to natural gas in October 1942, the mining company closed by 1945, and the population fell to 1,283 by 1950. Lignite mining came back in the 1960s to supply TP&L's Forest Grove plant.

In 1929 workers from Thomas Bartlett's Malakoff Pressed Brick Company were digging gravel near the Trinity River and found a carved stone head. Texas Co-op Power reports it weighed 98 pounds and was 16 inches long. A second head turned up in 1935, and by 1939 three heads had been found. The excavation site is now under Cedar Creek Reservoir. Later study by archaeologist Thomas H. Guderjan concluded that none of the three heads was the work of early people, so the mystery remains.

The three originals are displayed together at the Pearce Museum at Navarro College in Corsicana. The Malakoff Historical Society and Museum on East Main Street has exact casts of all three.

Malakoff holds its Cornbread Festival downtown on a Saturday in late September. The 25th was on September 24, 2022 (Athens Review), and the 27th was on September 28, 2024 (KETK). The day includes a cornbread cook-off in sweet, savory and exotic categories, a corn-on-the-cob eating contest, a car show, vendors, food trucks and live music. KETK reports the 2024 event also showed off "Baby Clay," which holds the Guinness World Record for largest brick.

Malakoff ISD's teams are the Tigers. The football team won the school's first state championship in the 2023 season, finishing 16–0 under head coach Jamie Driskell (KLTV). The Texas Tribune's schools explorer, which draws on state data, lists 1,522 students across five campuses.