Both Newton County and its county seat, Newton, were named after John Newton, a supposed hero of the American Revolutionary War. However, John Newton's heroics are said to be a product of Parson Weems, who also fictionalized the story of George Washington and the cherry tree. In 1853, disputes led to the building of a courthouse and town in the county's geographical center instead of in Burkeville, a community 11 miles north northeast of Newton. A second courthouse in Newton, a Second Empire style structure, was built in 1902–03 with bricks from nearby Caney Creek, according to a Texas Historical Commission marker. The town was incorporated in 1935 and remains the only incorporated city in the county. The town's public school began when the W.H. Ford Male and Female College was chartered in 1889. The site of the college later became the Powell Hotel and now serves as a museum and houses the city's chamber of commerce. The growth of the city during the first half of the 20th century was largely due to the dominant timber industry in East Texas. The town had at least one newspaper prior to 1920s.