Another part of Texas

Every once in a while I run across a Texas town I never heard of before. What is more uncommon is to run across several in the same area.

Gary City I never heard of until yesterday. Gary City is in Panola County, in deep East Texas, up against the Louisiana border. Wikipedia says Panola is derived from a Choctaw word for cotton.

Towns I never heard of around Gary City include Long Branch, Bobo, Caledonia, Brachfield, and Paxton.

The Long Branch Saloon was a hangout for Texas cowboys finishing cattle drives to Dodge City, Kansas. The Panola County Long Branch, though, is named after a sandy arm of the Murvaul Bayou, so says the Handbook of Texas Online. That part of Texas was known as the piney woods and in the late 19th century became part of a tremendous lumber producing industry, providing material to build cities back east and in the Midwest. Timber cutters were quite proficient, leaving the small towns even smaller when lumbermen and railroads went somewhere else. Long Branch now has a population under 200.

Bobo is in Shelby County and lies four miles west of Tenaha. The town grew up as a stop on the Houston, East and West Texas Railroad. The reported population in 1900 was 10. The community is on U.S. Highway 59.

Caledonia is in Rusk County. The Handbook of Texas says:

“Caledonia is nine miles east of Mount Enterprise in extreme southeastern Rusk County. Thomas Williams and William Elliott received land grants there in 1828. A post office was established in Caledonia in 1851, with Sam T. Allen as postmaster. It was discontinued in 1866, reestablished in 1870, and discontinued again in 1905. In 1883 the community reported a population of 150, three steam gristmills, a cotton gin, five churches, and a school. Cotton was the principal product of Caledonia. By 1892 the population had declined to fifty, but by 1896 it had risen to 100. In 1944 Caledonia had a population estimated at twenty-five, and in 1990 it was still listed as a community. In 2000 the population was seventy-five.”

Brachfield is also in Rusk County. The county is named after Thomas Jefferson Rusk, a secretary of state for the Republic of Texas. The Handbook has this listing.

Brachfield is five miles southwest of Pinehill in far eastern Rusk County. The community was called Murvall, for its location on Murvall Creek, when it was settled in the 1860s. It was preceded by a settlement called Gibson Town. Gibson Creek runs through the land survey on its way to Murvall Creek. Early settlers in the area included the Watkins, Miller, Brown, Welch, Hannah, and Debard families. In 1853 Archibald H. Watkins was appointed postmaster at Murvall. The old Trammel's Trace from Mount Enterprise to Pinehill may have come right through the site, and the trail probably contributed to the town's settlement. From 1892 to 1905 the Rusk County News called the place Needmore, for the community was said to need more of everything. Needmore had a sulfur springs and spa called Welch Springs, and Nathaniel Johnston built a hotel and store there about 1896, the year he was appointed postmaster. The community was renamed again when it was discovered that there was another Needmore in Texas. In 1900 Charles L. Brachfield stood on a stump and made his first political speech for election as county judge; hence the town's new name. The community had a post office from 1900 to 1906. The highest population recorded for the town was eighty during the 1950s and 1960s, and its residents declined afterward to thirty or fewer. The population in 1990 was thirty. By 2000 the population had increased to forty.

Paxton is in Shelby County. A post office was opened in 1892. By 1914, the community had a population of 100. The Southern Pacific Railroad station was a shipping point for local lumber mills. The 1929 population of 300 was not maintained, with 100 people living there in 1947.

The area was the scene of a Regulator and Moderator War 1841-42. Sam Houston, first president of the Republic of Texas, reportedly stated: “I think it advisable to declare Shelby County, Tenaha and Terrapin Neck free and independent governments and let them fight it out.”

Texans are accused of thinking Texas is a whole ‘nother country. Deep East Texas is a whole ‘nother part of the whole ‘nother coutry.