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Texas
Ghost Town BOGUS
SPRINGS, TEXASCass
County, East Texas
In the Rodessa oilfield
Population: 0
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"On
FM 125 in southeastern Cass County about three miles west of McLeod and ten miles
from Tri-States. Tri-States is known by some as Three Corners, the place where
three state lines meet. The larger region known as the Ark-La-Tex includes Three
Corners and as the name suggests, portions of Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas....
" - N. Ray Maxie. From The
Ark-La-Tex and Bogus Springs
History in a Pecan Shell
Not much is known about early Bogus Springs. The name is very likely a corruption
of Baugus, since there was a family by that name in the area. It is thought that
Baugus Springs was the earlier name for the same community. As the name suggests,
the settlement grew around a fresh water spring.
In the 1930s, Bogus Springs
had a single business and ten residents - growing to 20 people by the 1950s. According
to the Handbook of Texas, Bogus Springs ceased to exist as a named community by
1986.
Mr. Ray Maxie of Conroe, Texas, a former Cass Countian who grew
up in the area contributes this information:
"The 1942 edition of an ESSO
Oil Co. Texas Road map (Standard Oil of NJ) forerunner of Exxon,) shows Bivins.
I grew up at RR. #1, Bivins, Tx and was 3 years old when this map came out....
This is the only map I have ever found that includes Bogus Springs. I would never
have thought it deserved being on a map.
Many times I have drank water
from this spring, now long gone and dried up. It was less than 100 feet off the
road and was boxed in with cypress wood to contain the water. In the 1940's and
'50's, each morning oilfield workers (Including my dad) would stop and fill their
water jugs for the day.
Several years ago, I was saddened when I went
there with a shovel intending to dig the old spring out and revive it. It was
to no avail. The spring was so dried up that narry a bit of moisture could be
found. And the large old oak tree whose roots the spring came from was gone."
- Ray Maxie, Conroe, Texas | |
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