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Kentuckytown Baptist Church
Photo courtesy Mike
Price, September 2009 |
Kentucky
Town History in a Pecan ShellFirst
settlers appeared in 1837 although nothing resembling a community started to until
the late 1840s when a wagon train arrived from Kentucky.
The community
began 1851 with not one but two stores and a mill. A town was platted by Dr. Josiah
L. Heiston in late 1852 and although he attempted to name the town after his daughter
(Ann Eliza), the matter was settled by the public who insisted on calling the
place Kentuckians' Town or Kentucky Town. The name was popular in 1854
when the post office was granted. After approval by the post office the name became
official.
The town had all the pre-railroad advantages of being on stage
and freight routes coming from the ports of Shreveport and Jefferson,
but that wasn’t to last. From a population only in double digits, Kentucky grew
rapidly, in 1855 reporting thriving businesses numbering as high as twenty, three
physicians and a church and two schools.
The guerilla William (Bloody
Bill) Quantrill and his men used the region around Kentucky Town as a hideout
during the Civil War. In the 1870s, the town was dealt the death-blow of being
bypassed by the (Texas and Pacific) railroad. Later, when the Katy (Missouri,
Kansas and Texas) railroad entered Texas from the north, the town missed its second
chance at a railroad.
By
1883 all that was left of the town was the store / post office. The post office
managed to stay open until the mid 1920s. Today the church, cemetery and a few
scattered houses are all that is left. |
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Kentucky Town Historical Marker
Photo courtesy Mike
Price, September 2009 |
Kentucky Town
Historical Marker TextWhen
first settled in 1830s was known as Annaliza. Renamed by Kentucky emigrants in
1858. Unique layout gave town protection against Indian attacks. On freight and
stage routes. "Sacred Harp," a robust frontier gospel style of singing and composition,
began here. During Civil War was Quantrill gang rendezvous. |
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