Kilgore, which proudly still lays claim to the title "Capital of the World's Largest Oil Field", is appropriately named for several reasons.

The city character is closely akin to the man for which it is named, Constantine Buckley Kilgore, who was a proud, progressive and effective gentleman of the Old South. He placed honor and freedom on the top pedestal of importance.

To illustrate the proud and fiery character of Colonel Buck Kilgore, an East Texas newspaper printed a story detailing one of the more memorable episodes of his tenure in the U.S. Congress.

During his four terms, eight years as congressman of the Third Congressional District, Colonel Kilgore was locked in the House chamber one day along with other members when the speaker decided that a vote on some federal election bills was not appreciated by the independent Buck Kilgore and other Democrats, in the minority.

With the click of door locks "up rose Kilgore from Texas, resolute of purpose, stalwart of frame, massive of foot. With tight clinched fists, set teeth, and eyes aflame, the fiery Texan strode down the isle, passed the chair of rule, and made for the door which leads to the speaker's lobby.

"Make way for liberty! Unlock that door", he thundered.

The door keeper neither moved nor spoke. For one brief moment Kilgore's foot, shod with the vastness and might of the majestic Texas, swung in the air, and then, with one blow, as that which burst the door of the Bastille and let freedom upon the world, he kicked his way to liberty.

"......But the despot's power was gone. Kilgore's mighty kick had smashed the prison door, broken the Republican despot's rule, "busted" the quorum, and battered a Republican nose."

The last reference in the quote above was to the smashing of Congressman Dingley's nose. Dingley of Maine happened to be standing on the opposite side of the door, and Kilgore's kick smashed the door into his face with a bang.

This stalwart love of liberty and the intellectual and physical ability to carry out a necessary action had been part of young Kilgore's upbringing in the rugged frontier and piney woods of Rusk County. It also was his heritage to the courage passed along to him from his parents. Mr. and Mrs. Willis Kilgore, who came to East Texas from Georgia in 1846 to settle in that part of Rusk County which would in 1873 become a part of Gregg County.

Both Buck Kilgore and his father, as well as all of his grown brothers, enlisted in the Confederate army upon the outbreak of hostilities even though the elder Kilgore was loud in his opposition to the secession of Texas from the union and entry into the Confederacy. The elder Kilgore was killed in action at the Battle of Oak Hill in Missouri as a Third Texas Cavalryman in 1861.

Buck Kilgore was born at Newman Coweta County, Georgia, on February 20, 1835 and came to Texas a s a youngster in 1845 with the family. The area in which he was reared was the Danville Community north of the present city of Kilgore. He left home at the age of 17 to work as a field hand then study law at various times and acquired a fair education at Henderson College, then known as Fowler Institute. He married Miss Fannie Barnett, daughter of Major S.S. Barnett and Mrs. Barnett of Rusk County.

Kilgore was elevated to orderly sergeant in the army, then to lieutenant, captain and finally to lieutenant colonel. He was wounded and captured at the Battle of Chickamaunga and remained in a prison camp until the war ended in 1865.

Returning to his East Texas home after the war, Kilgore began a serious study of the law and was elected justice of the peace in 1869 and also was selected as one of the members of the Texas Constitutional Convention which framed the document in 1876 which still governs the state. It was after he moved from Kilgore to Wills Point in 1877 that he became prominent in state politics and subsequently was elected as a state senator and then two years later as a member of the federal House of Representatives.

But, it was before the Kilgores moved that his importance in Gregg County history was assured. S.Slade Barnett, Mrs. Barnett's father, also was a resident of Danville at the time destiny placed the area in the path of the on-rushing railroad lines of the International and Great Northern line as it was pushed southward from Longview. The railroad bargained with Rayburn Hamilton, one of the sons-in-law of Barnett, for the location of the tracks through Danville and the platting of a township there. But Hamilton would not deal, and company officials turned to the other son-in-law, Buck Kilgore, who came to an agreement and signed it on Oct 28, 1871, deeding a 200 foot strip of land containing an approximate 15 acres to the railroad. Then on June 27, 1872, Mr. and Mrs. Kilgore executed a deed to the railroad for 174 acres of land, on which the original township of Kilgore was located. The town, when the railroad arrived, was known as New Danville in the beginning but the name was changed to Kilgore.

The Kilgores received 1,400 gold dollars for the land and 1,400 gold dollars due six months later.

The International & Great Northern Railroad laid its tracks and platted the township and then moved on southward toward the Overton area.

Buck Kilgore's permanent place in history was assured by his actions and the township of Kilgore came into being, even though he and his family moved from the area. After Colonel Kilgore's tenure in Congress was ended by his being defeated in 1894, he petitioned President Grover Cleveland for a public appointment and Cleveland responded by granting the colonel appointment as a U.S. district judge in Oklahoma. He took the oath of office on April 3, 1895, and died in Ardmore, Oklahoma, on Sept. 23, 1897.

Yet, Colonel Kilgore was not the only person who made a lasting impact on Kilgore. Only three years after his birth, a first class Headright certificate of one league and one labor of land (a league being 4,840 acres and a labor consisting of 177.1 acres) was granted to Mary Van Winkle. By virtue of this certificate, Mary Van Winkle received a patent from the state for one league of land on Jan. 5, 1849.

Mary Van Winkle, apparently a widow, later married John Chisum and she and her husband sold her headright on Oct 11, 1856. 1,340 acres being transferred to Uriah Dunn of $4,020. Mr. & Mrs. Chisum were residents of Limestone County at the time of the sale.

Uriah Dunn immediately mortgaged the land, and on Sept 7, 1869, one Constantine Buckley Kilgore purchased 840 acres of it at a U.S. Marshall's sale. He paid $1500 for the tract. The U.S. Circuit Court had rendered the sale to satisfy judgment against the heirs of Dunn.

Kilgore was in Rusk County then, but the County of Gregg was created by act of the 13th Legislature of Texas on June 25,     873, the new county being carved out of Upshur County. Then, in 1874, the 14th Legislature enlarged Gregg County by partitioning the northwest corner of Rusk County, including that section which holds Kilgore into Gregg County.

The township of Kilgore by this time had been platted, some lots sold  and the railroad line and depot established. The city continued to serve as the focal point of a large farming area throughout the years of the 1800's and into the 1900's. Cotton was the principal money crop for the farming families in the area and much timber and cattle were shipped through the Kilgore depot.

One yardstick of measurement of the growth of Kilgore following its creation was the founding of a major educational institution within its unincorporated confines. The now defunct Alexander Institute came into being in 1873, the year of Gregg County organization. It was one of the first co-educational schools in the East Texas area and had its beginning in the New Danville Masonic Female Academy.

The new Danville academy was established by action of the 5th Legislature of texas on Jan 21, 1854, and operated throughout the Civil War in the old Presbyterian church at Danville.

Dr. Isaac Alexander moved to Henderson from Tennessee in 1854 and in 1858 began teaching at the academy. With the arrival of the railroad and the gradual growth of the township of Kilgore afterward, the citizens of Kilgore saw the need for a school in the new township. In the year of 1873 Dr. Alexander was persuaded by Kilgore citizens, including Watt wynn, Capt. J.M. Thompson and Matt Barton, to move the Danville academy to Kilgore and reorganized it along coeducational lines. The school was renamed  Alexander Institute at the time, and it was housed in a large, two story building and was made up of seven or eight large rooms, and the auditorium on the second floor.

The school operated as a private enterprise until 1875 when it was taken under the wing of the East Texas Conference of the Methodist Church. It offered courses and grades all the way from the first year through the college level, and some 10 teachers made up the faculty.

The Methodist church conference decided that the school would serve better if it were more centrally located, and it was moved to Jacksonville in 1894 to eventually become Lon Morris College.

The Kilgore Independent School District did not replace the school until the year 1906. The district was approved in an election on Aug. 27 of that year. Children of the township were educated in a common school district before formation of the independent district.

The first school was located on North Street in Kilgore, being composed of three rooms which were crowded with 125 students by 1910. In 1912 the first brick school was completed, a two story structure, and it served the community until the early 1930's when the oil boom made necessary the building of the present junior and senior high school and eventually several elementary schools.

As the town grew the number of houses multiplied of course, but Kilgore was still an unincorporated town of some 600 residents when Dad Joiner struck oil some 16 miles southward. The next strike came at Lou Della Crim No. 1, which is located 12 miles north of the founding well. Then came the first well in Kilgore, drilled on the land of J.A. Knowles.

Derricks sprang up like mushrooms in Kilgore and wells gushed forth their black gold so quickly that the entire city was dotted with wells within two short years. The rest is well known history in East Texas.....and Kilgore became the town with the world's richest acre.