Kountze

Kountze is at the junction of Farm roads 418 and 1293, State Highway 326, and U.S. Highway 69/287, twenty-seven miles northwest of Beaumont in central Hardin County. It was named for Herman and Augustus Kountze, financial backers of the Sabine and East Texas Railroad, and became a station on the line. Retail businesses and lumbermen accompanied the railroad; sawmills were established at Plank, Nona, and Olive, all within three miles of Kountze. A post office was opened there in 1882. An attempt in 1884 to make Kountze the county seat failed by eleven votes. However, after a courthouse fire in 1886, voters reversed their earlier decision and overwhelmingly made Kountze the Hardin county seat the following year. Read more at TSHA