Burkeville

Burkeville is at the intersection of State highways 87 and 63, seventy miles northeast of Beaumont in northeast Newton County. John Burke, for whom the town was named, laid out the plots in 1844, although settlers had apparently been in the area for some time. Upon discovering that Quicksand Creek, the place where the court officially first met, was not at the true geographic center of the county as was formerly supposed, Burkeville citizens petitioned in 1847 for their community to become county seat. Burkeville secured the honor in 1848, and an election the following year confirmed its position by a narrow 8682 margin. The county courthouse, paid for by subscription, was located on a small tract donated by John Burke. The courthouse question was reopened, however, in 1853, when another election made Newton, a newly established settlement at the geographic center of Newton County, county seat. Burkeville citizens refused to allow the transfer without a struggle; indeed, they succeeded in temporarily restoring Burkeville as county seat in 1855. However, county officers refused to leave Newton, and the state legislature ruled in 1856 that Newton should remain county seat. As a center for local agriculture and trade, however, Burkeville remained active. It served as a Confederate arsenal during the Civil War