Jasper : Texas
Jasper is a city located in Jasper County, Texas is on U.S. highways 96 and 190, State Highway 63, and Sandy Creek in north central Jasper County. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 8,247. It is the county seat of Jasper County6 and is situated in East Texas. Jasper is about 110 miles (180 km) northeast of Houston.
History
The area was settled around 1824 by John Bevil. 30 families occupied the settlement as early as 1830, when it was known as Snow River or Bevil’s Settlement after John R. Bevil one of the earliest white settlers.
In 1835 it was renamed for William Jasper, a hero of the American Revolution who was killed attempting to plant the American colors at the storming of Savannah in 1779. Jasper became the county seat in 1844. During the Civil War the town housed a Confederate quartermaster depot. Antebellum educational institutions included the Jasper Male and Female High School, which operated until 1878, when it became the Southeast Texas Male and Female College, and Jasper Collegiate Institute, which operated from 1851 until 1874. The population declined to 360 in 1870, reflecting the hardships of the Civil War, but by 1885 had risen to 1,000.
A weekly newspaper, the Jasper Newsboy, has been published continuously since 1865.
In 1896 Jasper had a population of 1,200. With the arrival of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway early in the twentieth century, Jasper grew into a center for the manufacture of timber products. Lumber from two sawmills with a daily capacity of 125,000 board feet (295 m³), goods from basket and stave factories, logs, ties, poles, and pulpwood were shipped in 200 cars per month.
