Your Connection to East Texas History

Conference registration is now open! Click the “Learn More” button below to register!

Click here for the conference schedule! We are looking forward to so many wonderful presentations and and events!

Reservations at the Fredonia Hotel are now available! Click the “learn more” button below for more details.

The East Texas Historical Association’s 2026 annual fall meeting will be held in Nacogdoches, TX at the Fredonia Hotel from October 8-10, 2026.

Please join us for the August installment of the ETHA Summer Webinar Series!

Tuesday, August 25, 2026

6:00 p.m. CT

Jim Burnett – "The Surprising Legacy of German-American Pioneers in Southeast Texas"

If you enjoy events such as Oktoberfest in Fredericksburg and Wurstfest in New Braunfels, you can thank the thousands of Germans who came to Texas in the mid-nineteenth century. While many settled in the Hill Country, others became pioneers in coastal Southeast Texas. Jim Burnett will share some of their now largely forgotten stories and the legacy they left for the state.

Burnett is a fourth-generation Texan, longtime historian, retired National Park Service professional, and author of three nonfiction books. His latest, Saltgrass Prairie Saga: A German American Family in Texas, published by Texas A&M University Press in 2025, received the Texas State Historical Association’s 2026 Kate Broocks Bates Award for Historical Research.

Register for the webinar here: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/TZ-5I7VkQbSV0AQGvGYfqQ

We hope you will join us on August 25 for another great evening of Texas history!

The Archives War and Moving the Capital of Texas (August 4, 2026)

Check out Dr. Scott Sosebee’s weekly ”All Things Historical” column, published in The Daily Sentinel, where he brings his deep knowledge of East Texas’s past to insightful reflections on the region. Each week, he shares the histories that help define East Texas today.

What is there about history that attracts you?

I always tell my students that history is the story of us. History provides the narrative that explains the backdrop of our current moment. Without understanding history, we can’t understand ourselves.

Learn more about ETHA, the organization and the people who make it special.

When you join ETHA you become part of an effort to document the many histories of East Texas.

Conferences, special events, and lectures by major speakers educate and connect us with each other.

The East Texas Historical Journal delivers historical research, member books help interpret it.

Do more by becoming a life member, a donor, or by sponsoring an issue of the Journal or a page on the website.

ETHA recognizes excellence in scholarship and education with several awards.