Someone
once noted, “There’s a lot of hope in East
Texas.” But he didn’t know the whole story. The
Handbook of Texas lists seven East Texas
communities with the name of New Hope, two known as Little Hope, four Hopewells.
and two Mount Hopes. Let’s begin with their stories, starting with the Little
Hopes.
One Little
Hope can be found in Wood County 10 miles east of Quitman.
Some folks call it the “new” Little Hope. The town had a school taught by 15-year-old
Emily Smith, a church and a cemetery, but by 2000, it had only 15 residents.
Another
Little Hope
existed in Van Zandt County four miles southeast of Canton.
Its name came from the Little Hope Baptist Church. The community is often called
the Little Hope-Moore Community because the Methodists established the Moore church
in the same area.
A New Hope, also known as New Home, stands
four miles northwest of Starrville
in Smith County. It was founded in the 1930s when New Hope School was established
for white students and New Home school was founded for black children. The community
was not shown on 1981 maps.
A second New Hope, also known as Gum
Creek, lies 13 miles northwest of Rusk
in Cherokee County. The area was settled in the 1950s and got its name
from a Baptist Church which also served as a school. In the l990s, only the church
and a few homes remained.
Limestone County also had a New Hope
which was bypassed by a railroad in 1906, limiting the community’s chances for
growth. By the 1980s only a church and a cemetery appeared on local maps.
A fourth New Hope stands nine miles west of San
Augustine in San Augustine County. In its early days, the settlement
consisted of a school, church and a cemetery. Today, the church and school are
gone and by 2000 the population had fallen to 75.
San Jacinto County
had a New Hope, also known as the Brown School settlement. An abandoned
railroad tram also ran through the community, indicating that logging was important
to the community. A church still marks the settlement and several new buildings
have been built since the 1950s.
Besides having a Little Hope, Smith
County also has a New Hope two miles north of Troup. It, too, had a
school, a church and a cemetery. The population in 2000 was seventy-five.
Wood
County had a New Hope four miles east of Mineola,
but moved north of the earlier location The town also had a Blackjack Academy
and a Baptist church. In 2000, its population was 15.
Hopewells can be
found in Red River and Franklin counties in East Texas. Red River’s Hopewell,
once known as Mulberry, was five miles north of Clarksville
and Franklin County’s Hopewell was six miles southeast of Mount
Vernon.
Other East Texas Hopewells were seven miles west of
Gilmer in Uphsur County and two
miles northwest of Paris in Lamar County,
The two Mount Hopes in East Texas
are in Cherokee County near Wells
and in Tyler County near Chester
.
Bob
Bowman's East Texas
December 20, 2009 Column
A weekly column syndicated in 109 East Texas newspapers
Copyright
Bob Bowman |
