Bunker Hill

BUNKER HILL, TEXAS. Bunker Hill, on State Highway 62 in southeastern Jasper County thirty-three miles northeast of Beaumont, was named for the Massachusetts hill of Revolutionary War fame. After the construction of the Orange and Northwestern Railway from Orange to Buna in 1902, a loading switch was laid at Bunker Hill for locally cut timber. A post office was established there in 1910. Although that office was discontinued in 1915, Bunker Hill was also the site of a Western Naval Stores turpentine camp, abandoned in 1918, and a Texas Company (later known as Texaco) pumping station, closed in 1943. The first producing well in the Bunker Hill oilfield was drilled in 1960. Additional small deposits were found during the next two decades. In 1986 scattered buildings and the "Bunker Hill Ranch" marked the rural community. An abandoned sawmill lay slightly to the west. Most of the area was being used as pastureland.