Onalaska, Texas
City in the United States in Polk County
About Onalaska
Onalaska is a city in Polk County, Texas, United States. Situated on a peninsula on Lake Livingston, it had a population of 3,020 at the 2020 census.
Settled during the Republic of Texas period, the site remained a small farming community until the lumberman William Carlisle developed it as a company town around 1905, building a large sawmill and chartering the Beaumont and Great Northern Railroad to serve it. Onalaska boomed to a population of about 2,000 by 1908, but the exhaustion of local timber and flooding on the Trinity River closed the mill, and the town declined to roughly eighty residents by the late 1940s. The completion of Lake Livingston in 1968 reversed that decline, and Onalaska has since grown as a recreation and retirement community. The city was struck by a deadly tornado in April 2020. Onalaska also drew national attention as the registered address of more than a thousand aircraft despite having no airport, an anomaly exposed in a 2019 investigation that led to federal drug-trafficking convictions and a change in aircraft registration law.
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How Onalaska is governed
Form of government not yet listed.
1 of 14 positions listed. Gray dashed boxes are placeholders waiting for a name.
Residents of Onalaska
Registered voters elect the officials below.
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Mayor
Executive
- James W. Arnett per Wikidata
The city's chief elected official. Presides over the executive branch, proposes the budget and represents the city.
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City Manager / Administrator
Executive
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The professional administrator who runs day-to-day operations (in some cities appointed by the council instead of the mayor).
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Police Chief
Administration & departments
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Leads the police department.
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Fire Chief
Administration & departments
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Leads the fire and emergency services department.
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Public Works Director
Administration & departments
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Streets, water, sewer, and city buildings.
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Finance Director
Administration & departments
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The budget, taxes, and city accounts.
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Planning & Zoning Director
Administration & departments
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Land use, zoning, building permits.
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Parks & Recreation Director
Administration & departments
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Parks, programs, and public facilities.
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City Council
Legislative
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The elected body that passes ordinances, sets the tax rate and approves the budget.
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City Clerk
Administration & departments
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Keeps the official records, runs meeting agendas and, often, local elections.
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City Attorney
Administration & departments
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The city's lawyer; advises officials and prosecutes ordinance violations.
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Boards & Commissions
Legislative
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Citizen advisory bodies, such as planning, zoning appeals and library boards.
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Municipal Court
Judicial
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Hears traffic, ordinance and other minor cases.
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Municipal Judge
Judicial
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Presides over the municipal court.
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- Website
- cityofonalaska.us
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Population over time
From 1,764 in 2010 to 3,020 in 2020 (+71.2%).
Show the numbers
| Year | Population |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 3,020 |
| 2010 | 1,764 |
History
Early settlement
The area was settled during the Republic of Texas period, with local accounts placing the first settlement in 1840. It remained a sparsely populated farming district in western Polk County until the arrival of the lumber industry in the first decade of the 20th century.
Carlisle Lumber Company and the company town
William Carlisle, a lumberman based in Atchison, Kansas, sent L. O. Jackson to Polk County in 1903 to select a mill site; Jackson acquired several thousand acres of timberland in the area between Trinity, Groveton, Corrigan, and Livingston. Carlisle developed the townsite about 1905 and brought roughly thirty experienced workers with him from his Arkansas operation. Jackson served as manager of mill construction and operations and remained a leading figure in the town.
By 1908 Onalaska had a railroad depot, a bank, a hotel, an electric power plant, and a population of about 2,000 — larger, at its peak, than the county seat at Livingston. Electricity for both the mill and the town was generated by two 150-kilowatt direct current machines. The community also supported two hotels, a hospital, a movie theater, a park, a cold-storage plant, and a commissary.
Town plan and segregation
In keeping with Jim Crow-era practice, housing was racially segregated into three districts. White employees occupied roughly seventy houses centered on Main Street; a district of about forty houses west of a dividing creek housed Black employees; and a separate quarter further east housed Mexican laborers, whose homes were painted red, giving rise to the local name "Red Quarters." Married employees were furnished company housing at a rent of $5 per month, which included water and electricity.
Railroad
To move its lumber, the Carlisle interests chartered the Beaumont and Great Northern Railroad on June 22, 1905, with capital stock of $370,000 and its principal place of business at Onalaska. Carlisle and his partner George W. Pennell sat on the first board of directors alongside Jackson. Between August 1905 and May 1908 the company built thirty-three miles of track running from Trinity through Onalaska to Livingston, connecting the town to the wider rail network.
The line passed to the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad ("the Katy") under a long-term lease in 1914, but reverted to its original owners and resumed independent operation on April 1, 1923, as the Waco, Beaumont, Trinity and Sabine Railway. It was abandoned in stages, with the Livingston segment retired in 1949 and the last track removed in 1961.
Decline of the mill
The West Lumber Company, controlled by the Houston lumberman James M. West Sr., had purchased the sawmill by 1909. Flooding from the Trinity River and the exhaustion of the surrounding timber brought operations to an end; according to the Handbook of Texas, the sawmill had been dismantled by 1913.
Local accounts give later and mutually inconsistent chronologies: the city's own history variously dates West's purchase to 1912 with closure in 1924, and elsewhere describes a sale to West in 1909 for $4 million, a fire and rebuilding in 1915, and operation until the end of 1928. Whichever date is correct, the town's decline was rapid: the population fell from about 2,000 in 1908 to roughly 1,250 by 1925, and to about eighty residents by the late 1940s. Onalaska persisted as a modest agricultural community, the cleared bottomland left behind by the loggers proving suitable for cotton. As late as 1961 the town had only two rated businesses.
Lake Livingston and revival
The completion of Lake Livingston in 1968 transformed the local economy, and Onalaska experienced a second period of growth driven by recreation, retirement settlement, and real estate. The number of rated businesses rose from two in 1961 to twenty-eight by 1984.
In an incorporation election held on July 12, 1971, residents voted 45 to 18, of 63 ballots cast, in favor of incorporation, and the Polk County judge declared Onalaska incorporated as a town. The governing body later changed the municipality's designation from town to city under the Texas Local Government Code.
Growth accelerated in the 21st century, with the population rising from 1,174 in 2000 to 3,020 in 2020.
Recent developments
Onalaska City Park, an 8-acre (3.2 ha) green space on FM 356, opened in 2015; the same year the Garland family donated the 6,400-square-foot (590 m2) Garland Pavilion, which serves as a venue for city events.
The city has been awarded funding through the Texas General Land Office's regional mitigation grant program, financed by federal Community Development Block Grant mitigation funds; its adopted budgets carried $679,000 of this grant income in fiscal year 2023–2024. In 2024 the city announced plans to apply for the 2025–2026 Texas Community Development Fund.
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