The History Center

What it reported doing in 2025

Providing Access to Collections and Public Programming: This is the majority of services, but they are dependent upon our first two services. During 2025 we created and featured two major exhibits containing more than 100 photographs and small artifacts each. One exhibit featured the history of a local 19,000 acre forest conservation area and the other featured Angelina County during World War II. Both exhibits drew from our curated and preserved collections of photographs, maps, papers, archives, records, and artifacts from around the world. Many guided tours were given as well as offsite programs presented. We continued to digitize our photographs and manuscripts and offer them for free through our website, which averages about 20,000 page views per month and nearly four million pages of PDF files downloaded annually. Staff made offsite presentations and gave programs (including oral history workshops) and prepared and installed offsite exhibits, serving organizations such as Sarahs Hope, Big Thicket Association, Daughters of the Republic of Texas, Daughters of the American Revolution, Lufkin Study Club, several garden clubs, civic organizations in Groveton, Trinity, Lacy, and Nigton, the Angelina Arts Alliance, Lufkin Creative, and area forestry organizations. Onsite tours were given to Harris County senior citizen groups, retired teacher associations, public schools from Liberty and Lufkin, home school families and organizations, Texas Parks & Wildlife Department staff, and visiting scholars. Staff also regularly gave interviews and provided photographs to area newspapers and magazine and book authors. We also served about 330 in-person researchers and provided research assistance by email and telephone to some 1,600 additional researchers. Research projects included U. S. Forest Service archaeologists, providing them our land, forest, and railroad records; Angelina County officials in selecting more than 100 historical photographs to decorate county buildings; state and federal agencies concerning reestablishing pre-settlement forests in the Caddo Lake area (especially the Superfund site that was once the Longhorn Army Ammunition Plant); Black schools in the area; and assisting several municipal, business, and civic organizations celebrating anniversaries and reunions. We created more than a dozen new finding guides (including arrangement and description), which allow better access to our more than 5,000 cubic feet of records, and we published our annual Pine Bough Magazine, which featured many stories of our region. We also gave tours and published photographs of our award-winning native plant gardens, focusing on the pollinators of our region.

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: 98.9%; rating input score 99
• Program expense ratio: 91%; rating input score 91
• Fundraising efficiency: Limited

Transparency & Controls

• Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
• Pay-setting controls: Limited
• Foreign activity oversight: Limited
• Grant itemization coverage: Limited
• Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
• Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

• Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 64th percentile among comparable filings
• Governance controls: 3 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 38
  • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
  • Whistleblower policy: Fail
  • Document-retention policy: Fail
  • CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
  • Other executive compensation review process: Fail
  • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
  • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
  • Audit committee oversight: Missing
  • Independent financial-statement audit: Fail

Sustainability

• Operating margin: -8.6%; rating input score 14; 14th percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 2.78; rating input score 73; 73rd percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 77; 77th percentile among comparable filings
• Officer compensation ratio: 23.7%; rating input score 12; 12th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

• Program expense growth: 4.5% per year; rating input score 100; 34th percentile among comparable filings
• Revenue growth: 4.1% per year; rating input score 100; 32nd percentile among comparable filings
• Asset growth: 73.8% per year; rating input score 100; 97th percentile among comparable filings