Wealthy Alabama native Albert Tatum (1810-1870) settled here at Trammel's Trace and Grand Bluff Road crossing in the 1840s. Slave labor built Tatum's plantation home, a social center for the area. His wife Mary gave land and a station in 1882 for Longview & Sabine Valley Railroad, later part of the Santa Fe system. In 1892 Tatum's son Paul (1848-1914), known as "Uncle Fox," donated land and laid out the townsite. Farming and lumbering became the main industries. The formation in 1971 of Martin's Creek Lake and an electrical generating plant brought rapid growth.