| |
BOGATA,
TEXAS Red River
County, East Texas
Highways 271, 37, and FM 909
About 19 Miles SE of Paris
About 15 Miles SW of Clarksville
Population: 1,396 (2000)
|
Bogata
History in a Pecan ShellWilliam
Humphries had first visited this part of Texas in
1818. After hearing of Texas Independence after San
Jacinto, he came here later in 1836. The two are credited with being the town
founders. William and Mary (McGill) Humphries named the tiny settlement Maple
Springs.
By 1844 the community had opened a school and in 1851 the
town was granted a post office under the name Maple Springs.The town was supplied
by goods shipped from the steamboat connection at Jefferson,
Texas.
Growth necessitated a split and by 1880 the Maple Springs post
office renamed itself Rosalie, Texas and the following year a second post office
(2 miles west) was supposed to be named Bogotá after the Columbian capital. But
the postmaster’s application was misread (or misspelled) and the postal authorities
declared the town to be Bogata. Residents were resigned to use the “official”
spelling although they insisted on pronouncing the name as BUH-GO-TAH.
During the 1880s both Bogata and Maple Springs shared a school – the most famous
alumus being former vice president John Nance Garner. By the mid 1880s the population
of 400 was served by too many gristmills (6) as well as 4 cotton gins. Bogata
wasn’t bypassed when the Paris and Mount Pleasant Railroad arrived in 1910, but
the tracks were far enough from the business district to require a new commercial
street to be built.
Growth slowed as decades passed. The town survived
the Great Depression and the postwar exodus for better paying jobs. The high-water
mark occurred in 1980 when 1,508 people called Bogata home. The 1990 census reported
1,421 people which declined to just under 1,400 for 2000. | |
|
