In
the early 1830s, when cattle buyer Henry Reeves and his partner, a man known only
as Ball, built a store on the Rusk-Henderson road, visiting customers started
calling the settlement “Skin
Tight” because they were no match for Reeves’ close trading practices.
Reeves
moved to Smith County and, on June 13, 1886, he was shot to death in Troup.
The unflattering town name,”Skin Tight,” was soon changed to Lone
Star when a post office was established in 1883, and Lone Star thrived from
cotton and tomatoes. At one time, the town
had two cotton gins, a grist mill, several physicians, and a number of business
establishments, including three saloons.
Shelly Cleaver, who was born
at Lone Star, recalls that
his father used a Model T “hoopy” to haul tomatoes to market. “He could haul more
tomatoes in that ol’ hoopy than anyone else in Lone Star,” said Cleaver.
Cleaver
and his family later moved to Jacksonville,
but retained the home of his father, Henry Clay Cleaver.
During its hey
days the town had a Masonic Lodge, Cherokee Lodge 680, which was chartered in
1890 with D.L. Murphey as the Worshipful Master. The lodge was moved to Ponta
in 1928 and then to New
Summerfield in 1961.
The town also had a two-teacher school which
held classes on the second floor of the Masonic Lodge building. A private school,
the Lone Star Institute, was established by Colonel Thomas A. Cache and Rev. Angus
M. Stewart in 1889.
The Institute soon became so well-known in East
Texas that families often moved to Lone
Star so their children could attend the school’s classes, which emphasized
cultural accomplishments in music and education. But the school lasted only four
years.
Another popular lodge, the Woodmen of the World, also stood at Lone
Star and met regularly on the second floor of J. West’s store.
By 1890,
at least three general stores stood at Lone
Star. But in 1893, a fire that began in a doctor’s office destroyed much of
Lone Star’s business district.
The Tipton Black store and a saloon were the only commercial buildings spared.
At one time, Lone Star had three church denominations--Methodists, the Church
of Christ, and Universalists.
The town lost its post office in 1916 when
the town began to lose population. When the Texas and New Orleans Railroad bypassed
the town in 1903, many of Lone
Star’s businessmen moved to newly-established Ponta.
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