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SHELBYVILLE,
TEXASShelby
County, East Texas
FM 417 and Highway 87
7 Miles SE of Center
Population:
215 (2000) Book
Your Hotel Here & Save
Center
Hotels |
| | The
First United Methodist Church in Shelbyville
Photo courtesy Barclay
Gibson, April 2006 | |
History in a Pecan
Shell
Originally called Nashville (in the 1820s) when Tennesseans
settled here, it became the county seat of Shelby County when the county was organized.
The name was changed in 1837 when the Congress of the Republic of Texas decided
to honor American Revolutionary hero (and former governor of Kentucky) Isaac Shelby.
Shelbyville became the flash-point in the Regulator-Moderator
War. Most of the major battles of this famous feud were fought here or nearby.
A Republic of Texas post office had been established by 1843. In 1866 in a contested
fight for the county seat, county records were spirited away in the dead of night
and Center became the new Shelby County
seat of government.
The population of Shelbyville in 1884 was 150 which
doubled by 1914. It reached a peak in 1929 with an estimated population of 600
but declined by half during the Great Depression. It slowly increased, reaching
550 residents in the late 1940s but fell again - reaching 215 by the late 1980s
- the same number given for the 2000 census. |
People
A Centenarian's Life
by Bob Bowman ("All Things Historical" column)
"A long,
long time ago, Clara Davis stopped trying to remember the names of her grandchildren.
But there's a good reason. At the age of 106, she has 218 of them--34 grandchildren,
91 great-grandchildren, and 93 great-great grandkids..."
Ghosts
The
Laughing Ghost of Todd Springs, an area on a small stream near Shelbyville
in Shelby County. | |
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