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Montalba History
in a Pecan Shell
William J. Hamlett is credited with filling out the application for a post office
in 1881. The reason or source of the name supposedly comes from the white (alba)
sand on a nearby mountain (Mont). The areas’s previous post office had been located
several miles north of present Montalba where the Beaver Valley Primitive Baptist
Church (and cemetery) had been established (later to become Holly Springs.)
Both Beaver Valley and then Montalba prospered due to the location alongside
the Palestine to Athens
road. It was reported that a Confederate foundry nearby manufactured guns and
ammunition for “the Lost Cause.”
The population hit a low of fifty residents
in 1925 and then increased during the first years of the Great Depression to 300.
In the late 1970 there were still several businesses and three churches. In the
mid 1960s there were 200 people reported living here, but it declined to 110 in
the mid 1970s and that number continues to be used to the present census (2000).
The
Story of Concord by Bob Bowman
The countryside around Montalba, north
of Palestine in Anderson County, is among the most beautiful in East Texas with
its small mountains, winding roads and scenic streams...
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