New London, Texas

A post office called London opened here in 1855, according to the Handbook of Texas, and it served the area on and off until 1876. A school, now named West Rusk, was established the next year. Until 1930 the town depended on farming. Farmers grew mostly cotton and corn, plus watermelons, peaches and tomatoes, and shipped from a depot called Norfolk on a spur of the International–Great Northern.

In 1930 Columbus M. "Dad" Joiner drilled the first well in the East Texas oilfield a few miles away, and London became a boomtown. A new post office opened in 1931. A London post office already existed in Kimble County, so residents used the name New London. That same year Humble Oil and Refining moved 100 families and its district headquarters there from the Corsicana field. Oil companies provided jobs, housing, electricity and free gas and water.

The field declined in the 1950s, and the companies closed their housing camps. Many oilfield workers stayed and built homes. New London incorporated in 1963 (Handbook of Texas).

The London school was a modern, steel-framed, E-shaped building in one of the richest rural school districts in the country, according to the Handbook of Texas. In January 1937, to save about $300 a month, the district stopped buying gas from United Gas Company. Instead, plumbers tapped a residue gas line from Parade Gasoline Company. That raw gas had no smell. It leaked from a faulty connection and collected in the enclosed space under the building.

At 3:05 p.m. on March 18, a manual-training instructor switched on a sanding machine, and the spark ignited the gas. The building lifted and collapsed. Of the 500 students and forty teachers inside, about 298 died. Oilfield crews, Texas Rangers and doctors from Dallas, Shreveport and elsewhere worked through the night. All victims and debris were removed within seventeen hours.

The Handbook names the disaster's most important result: a Texas law requiring that distinctive malodorants be mixed into gas so people could smell a leak. The thirty surviving seniors finished the year in temporary buildings while a new school went up on nearly the same site. A cenotaph of Texas pink granite, designed by architect Donald S. Nelson and sculptor Herring Coe, was erected in front of the new school in 1939.

The London Museum sits on Main Street across from the cenotaph and West Rusk High School. It opened in 1998, Texas Standard reported in 2024. It displays artifacts recovered from the rubble, including victims' shoes, books, purses and pocket knives, along with photographs, newspaper accounts and recordings. Volunteers run it, except for a paid cook and secretary. Up front is an old-fashioned soda fountain.

New London is served by West Rusk County Consolidated ISD. The district has about 1,006 students on four campuses: West Rusk Elementary, West Rusk Intermediate, West Rusk Middle and West Rusk High School. Those figures come from the Texas Tribune's schools explorer, which draws on state data.

For more oilfield history, the East Texas Oil Museum is on the Kilgore College campus at 1301 S. Henderson Blvd. in Kilgore. It is open Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with last entry at 4. Martin Creek Lake State Park is about 28 miles east, roughly 40 minutes.