| |
COOKVILLE,
TEXAS Titus
County, East Texas
Highway 67
7 Miles NE of Mount
Pleasant
Population:
105 est. (2000) |
| | Cookville
Public School
Early 1900s photo courtesy texasoldphotos.com |
History
in a Pecan Shell
Andrew B. Cook opened a general
store on the Omaha to Mount Pleasant road just two years after the Civil War.
The town was granted a post office in 1870 under the name Clay Hill, Texas
but ten years later it was changed to honor Cook.
When railroad construction
started back after the war, Cookville became a station on the East Line and Red
River Railroad. A narrow-gauge railroad - but still a railroad. In 1884 the population
was a substantial 500 people and both Titus and Morris counties used Cookville
as a shipping point.
The "Gay 90s" weren't good to Cookville. From a population
of 600 - the town shrank down to only 250. As the twentieth century got under
way, Cookville not only rebounded but reached its zenith with 800 citizens in
1914. The economy was fueled by cotton and when the boll
weevil arrived and the price of cotton dissolved - so did Cookville's population.
By the mid 1920s there was just over 400 people in Cookville.
The
population continued to melt away and by 1990 there was just over 100 people calling
Cookville home. |
| | Cookville
as it appeared on a 1906 postal route map of Titus County
Courtesy Texas
General Land Office | |
|
