Burke, TX

In 2020, Burke had 691 residents on the western edge of Bradley Prairie in southwestern Angelina County, between Lufkin and Diboll. The town began when the Houston, East and West Texas Railway reached the prairie in 1881–82. Its first name was Rhodes, after local storekeeper W. R. Rhodes and postmaster H. R. Rhodes; in 1885 it became Burke, honoring railroad surveyor Ed Burke. For a time Burke was the main commercial center in this part of the county, with cotton gins, sawmills, general stores, a school, and a trading role for nearby farms.

The railroad still sets the town’s north–south line, while U.S. 59 and the old Diboll Highway carry the modern road traffic. Burke’s farming past is easy to picture in the open prairie and scattered timber, a landscape that made the town useful as a rail staging point and agricultural market. The local school joined Diboll Independent School District in 1964, and Burke incorporated in 1966. Today it is largely a residential community for people working in Lufkin and Diboll, with the old rail corridor and Bradley Prairie giving the place its sense of location.