A major thoroughfare that passed near the present Beckville site was a wagon road between Douglas in Nacogdoches County and Shreveport, Louisiana. It opened before the Civil War and is known today as the earliest highway in East Texas. Many settlers coming to this area traveled this road.

Interest in building new roads increased as the need for them became apparent. The early roads were made and cared for by hand labor. Stumps and logs were removed, high places were smoothed over a little, limbs too low for safety were cut back, and the streams that could not be forded were bridged. People traveled these new roads with extreme difficulty most of every season whether it was wet or dry. One man in every community was appointed to oversee the work of keeping roads in repair. It was his duty to set a day for working the road and then notify men to come and help. They were told what implements to bring. Axes, hoes, shovels, picks, and sometimes a mule and plow were needed. On the appointed day, the men with their lunches met at a designated spot. A long stretch of road was divided into sections and a group of men assigned to each division. Sometimes there were twenty or thirty men working on one section. Much work was done in this way. This system kept the roads in passable condition except when the weather was very bad. In later years the county took over the care of the roads, acting through the precinct commissioners. Machinery was bought and the men were paid by the county for the building and repair of roads. The commissioners designated the stretches of road to be worked and the length of time to be given to each community.

When automobiles began to be used most people thought they could not be operated successfully around here because of poor roads. As the number of cars increased, people became more interested in roads and their upkeep. Someone discovered that when clay was put on stretches of sand, or sand was put on stretches of clay it would make a better and a stronger roadway, one that would not get so deep in mud or sand. Since merchants were anxious to get more trade they encouraged road repair. Better roads caused people to buy more cars.

Later the main roads were straightened somewhat and graded while bridges were rebuilt where needed. The first hard surface road in the county was a ten mile strip from Beckville to Sabine River where it connected with a Harrison County road to Marshall. This strip of road was finished in 1925.and was soon the favorite driveway for pleasure.

The road between Beckville and Carthage was hard surfaced in 1931. This completed a state highway from Carthage to Marshall. People in Carthage had to travel through Beckville to get to Marshall. Beckville was on a loop of this road, which crossed the railroad track in the heart of town. In 1936 authorities decided to straighten this road, eliminate the loop, and build an overpass across the railroad track. This project was financed by the Texas Highway Department and the Federal Government. Work was started in May 1936 and finished in May.

Mr. Tom Hunter, an engineer with the Texas Highway Department has furnished the following information about the roads in this area. The section of highway #149 from Grand-Bluff to Nacogdoches road to Tatum was started in 1949. The dirt work was completed in 1950 and the hard surface was finished in 1951. It shortened the distance from Carthage to Longview. The road missed downtown Beckville.

In the late 1950’s highway #149 from Carthage to the Grand Bluff-Nacogdoches road was rebuilt. In order to improve this road, the two narrow lanes were widened, the shoulders were paved, and for a short distance, four lanes were built.

The road from Beckville to Fairplay was hard surfaced in 1950 and became Farm-Market Road #124. Mr. Hunter said Texas Highway Department tried to build the rural roads as cheaply as possible in order to get the farmer out of the mud. The old roadbed was followed instead of straightening the road. Mrs. Leila Belle LaGrone has found in her research that the reason the old roads were so crooked was because they were built on high ground to avoid low muddy places as much as o=possible. An extension to Farm-Market road #124 was constructed in the mid 1960’s. It goes by the Langley Cemetery and on to highway #59.