In 1850 William Morrow built a cotton gin about a mile north of here, opening a settlement. An early post office in the vicinity was renamed Weldon in 1869, for Weldon Jones Murchison (1838-99), a local pioneer merchant. Local economy was based on cotton and timber. Trains hauled logs over a tram road to mills in Trinity (15 miles east) by 1900. Town moved south in 1911, when Beaumont & Great Northern Railway reached this point. The East Texas Development Company platted the new townsite, which prospered in spite of disastrous fires in 1926 and 1927. Weldon post office closed Sept. 3, 1976.