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History in
a Pecan Shell
A storeowner and mill operator named Eli Coltharp
is credited with founding the community sometime before the Civil
War. A post office had been granted in 1857 and remained open through
1909. The 1880s were Coltharp's salad days. Besides being a cotton
shipping point (by water, not rail), the town could boast several
gins, sawmills and gristmills and (an above average for small towns)
population of 150.
A school was built in 1887 and although the population had reported
a drop to just 50, two years later it had increased to 100. The
town had gained a doctor and the law was provided by not one, but
two constables. By the mid 1890s the population dropped again, this
time to seventy five residents. Businesses fell from thirteen (1884)
to just two.
The 1900 census reported 113 but thereafter, no figures are available.
Students were transferred to nearby Kennard
in 1925 and the town went into a death spiral. By 1946 the town
was even dropped from the county map.
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Coltharp,
Texas Historical Marker
Photo courtesy Barclay
Gibson, April 2016 |
Historical Marker
(1.5 miles E of Kennard on SH 7)
Community
Of Coltharp
By the late 1850s
Eli Coltharp lived beside Cochina Bayou. He opened a store and post
office on the stage route west of Nacogdoches.
The farm area called Coltharp Hill boasted a gin, gristmill, blacksmith
and millinery shops. A school building housed Coltharp Masonic Lodge
No. 419, now in Kennard. When the
railroad bypassed Coltharp and a sawmill opened nearby in 1901, residents
worked at the mill and farming declined. The post office closed in
1909 and Coltharp School consolidated with Kennard
in 1925. Many descendants of early settlers remain in the area.
(1979) |
Historical Marker
(on CR 4700, 1.2 miles SE of SH 7)
Pioneer
Settlers of Coltharp
One of Houston
County's important early communities, Coltharp was settled at
this site in the 1850s. Pioneer settlers included Eli and Eliza Jane
Coltharp, William and Rhodey Conner, Jacob and Rhoda Gregg, Silas
and Sarah Gregg, L.B. (Brice) and Frances Conner John, and Thomas
J. Payne. A frame schoolhouse and masonic lodge hall, a church, and
numerous stores and houses once stood at this site. The economy turned
from cotton and corn
to timber in the late 1880s. Bypassed by the railroad, Coltharp declined
by 1925 as residents left for nearby sawmill
towns.
(1985) |
Pioneer
Settlers of Coltharp Historical Marker
Photo courtesy Barclay
Gibson, April 2016 |
1907 postal
map showing Coltharp SE of Crockett,
in eastern Houston
County
From Texas state map #2090
Courtesy
Texas General Land Office |
| Texas
Escapes, in its purpose to preserve historic, endangered and vanishing
Texas, asks that anyone wishing to share their local history, stories,
landmarks and recent or vintage photos, please contact
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