Emergency Crime Scene and Biohazard Cleanup in Alba, TX

Alba is a small town at the intersection of U.S. Highway 69 and Farm Road 17 on the western edge of Wood County in East Texas, south of Lake Fork, with part of the town extending into neighboring Rains County.

A gunsmith named Joseph Simpkins was likely the first settler of the area, arriving with his family from Missouri around 1843, and the community was previously known as Albia and as Simpkins' Prairie.

Theories differ on how Alba got its name: one claims it signaled that the town was intended for white settlers only, while another says it was named for the son of a railroad official.

The Alba Oilfield was discovered just south of Alba in 1848 by F. R. Jackson, decades before the Texas oil boom era.

The Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad came through Alba in 1881, the town received a post office that same year, a townsite was laid out by 1882, and the population grew from 50 in 1884 to 300 by 1896.

A lignite coal deposit was discovered near Alba around 1900, and in 1902 and 1903 the Texas Short Line Railway was constructed to ship coal from Alba and nearby Hoyt to Grand Saline.

By 1911, five area mines were producing about 40,000 tons of coal per month and employing about 1,000 workers, and Alba's population had reached around 1,500.

Unlike other coal mines in the state, the mines at Alba were forced to use convict labor, because Alba was a sundown town that banned African Americans and Hispanics from living or working there.

Alba's population fell to 430 by 2000 before recovering somewhat, and the 2020 census counted 473 residents; the 2010 census had counted 504 people in 203 occupied homes.

Alba sits about ten miles west of Quitman, the Wood County seat, just south of Lake Fork, one of Texas's most famous bass-fishing lakes.