This information was found in the vertical files of the Genealogy Department of the Longview Public Library.

According to a plaque that a mid-1950's Hughes Springs High School class erected in Spring Park, Hughes Springs has celebrated its 100th birthday. The town, named for plantation owner Reece Hughes, was officially founded in May of 1878. In the following October, the first post office was established there.

The real settlement of the Hughes Springs area had begun long before Hughes Springs came into being. The very first white settlers are believed to be the Allen Cox family from Alabama in 1838. They settled a few miles east of the now Hughes Springs, with other families to soon follow. A settlement soon established around the mineral springs found in the area and was called Chalybeate after the Indian name of the springs. This is what is now known as Spring Park, which is in the center of Hughes Springs.

In March of 1839, Robert Hughes & Reece Hughes arrived in the area. They built a log cabin and cleared land for their crops. All of this took place about a mile east of the Chalybeate Springs. Friends and relatives soon followed from Alabama to settle in the western parts of Cass County. Robert Hughes established the first town of Hughes Springs in 1847.

The original Hughes Springs was laid out in "blocks" that were 100 yards square, then subdivided into smaller lots. The new community thrived for a number of years and when 1850 rolled around, it was an overnight stop for the stagecoach that ran from Jefferson to Clarksville.

Reece Hughes and W.B. Akin were buying up extensive amounts of land in the area. Reese moved from his old farm and built a brick house, by slave labor, about 3 miles sw of the springs. Here was where he located an iron furnace. Several more homes and some stores sprang up near the furnace. But alas, by 1870 there was little left of the original settlement.

A "shot in the arm" arrived in the nick of time to save the dwindling town. The railroad arrived. The first railroads to come through Hughes Springs was the East Line and the Red River line. Hughes Springs soon became an important shipping point with its abundance of iron ore, timber and farm products. The business increased with the railroad line expanding and the town of Hughes Springs once more prospered.

In 1878, as the town prospered, Reece Hughes children & step children laid out the present Hughes Springs town site. They took in parts of the Chalybeate and the first Hughes Springs settlement, combining them into one. Town grew and included numerous stores and a "summer resort", or 36 room hotel, for all of the railroad officials. T.B. Keasler erected a brick 2 story building in 1880. Keasler and hired help made the bricks themselves as they erected the building. The springs soon became popular and word spread. In 1890 Hughes Springs was well known as a summer resort.