Joinerville, Texas: A Historical Overview of the Oil Boomtown (original) (raw)

By: Megan Biesele

Revised by: Katherine Kuehler Walters

Published: 1952

Updated: April 1, 2022

Joinerville is on State Highway seven miles west of Henderson in western Rusk County. It was originally called Cyril and then Miller, likely for the family of Andrew Miller or his son John Cherry (J. C.) Miller. The Miller family came to Texas in the early 1840s and received land grants. According to 1860 tax records, J. C. Miller owned seven enslaved people and 1,000 acres in the Juan Ximenes survey on the eve of the Civil War. During the late nineteenth century, the area was commonly called Miller School after a rural school, later called Gaston school, was established near or on the Miller farm.

In 1930, it became Joinerville, a boomtown named in honor of Columbus M. “Dad” Joiner, who brought in the first oil well to tap the East Texas Oilfield on October 3, 1930. The Joinerville post office was established in 1931 with Esther L. Berry as postmistress. During the 1929–1930 school year, the local school had four teachers. In the fall of 1931, the school had twenty teachers for 801 students. During the boom years, Joinerville had a population of 1,500, thirty-five businesses, and a post office. By 1940, however, its population had dropped to 500, and during the 1940s the number of residents declined further to 350; the reported number of businesses went down to four. After a slight upswing during the 1950s and 1960s, the population fell greatly, and in 1980 through 2000 Joinerville reported 140 residents and up to four businesses. In 2002 the town’s designation was removed from state maps but was returned in 2004 after locals petitioned their representative in the Texas Legislature. The town is near the site of a former Cherokee Indian village.

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Bibliography:

Garland Roscoe Farmer, The Realm of Rusk County (Henderson, Texas: Henderson Times, 1951). Kilgore News Herald, July 16, 1972. Dorman H. Winfrey, A History of Rusk County (Waco: Texian, 1961). Tyler Courier-Times, May 25, 2003. Tyler Journal, October 9, 1931. Tyler Morning Telegraph, July 11, 2005.

The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.

Megan Biesele Revised by Katherine Kuehler Walters, “Joinerville, TX,”Handbook of Texas Online, accessed October 21, 2025, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/joinerville-tx.

Published by the Texas State Historical Association.

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Original Publication Date:

1952

Most Recent Revision Date:

April 1, 2022