Wood County History

By LOU MALLORY — Chairperson, Wood County Historical Commission

More Early Communities   2-4-06

Stagner, Texas. Stagner is on FM 14 six miles northwest of Hawkins in southeast Wood County. It was named for Alabama native John Stagner, who, with his wife Malinda, settled at the site about 1873.

The settlement may have had a log schoolhouse as early as 1861, and by 1874, it had organized a church. Stagner was granted a post office in 1903. In 1905 a store was built and local one-teacher school had enrolled 49 children.

The post office closed in 1907. By the 1930s, Stagner consisted of a church and a school, which, in 1932, had an enrollment of 30. In the 1960s Stagner was located in the Pine Mills oilfield but only a church remained to mark the community’s location. By 1981, a few scatted building had appeared in the vicinity.

Sand Springs, Texas. Sands Springs or Sand Spring was a widely dispersed rural community near what is now Hawkins in the southeastern corner of Wood County. (This Sand Springs is not to be confused with the Sand Springs church and cemetery which was three miles northwest of Mineola near Sand Springs Lake in southwestern Wood County.

The Sand Springs area near Hawkins was settled as early as 1848, when Theophilus West, a farmer, brought his family to the area from Tennessee.

Two years later North Carolina native William Wellborne (sometimes spelled Welbourne or Welborn) arrived and eventually built a cotton gin and a gristmill on nearby Mill Creek.

By 1852, Sand Springs, which was near the Belzora road, had received a post office. The Belzora road was an important shipping route at this time in east Texas, as the railroad had not yet arrived.

Theophilus West was among the charter members when the Liberty Baptist Church was organized at the community in 1855. Liberty was a popular name in Wood County, shared by a second Liberty Church, located east of Quitman, as well as a Liberty school and a Liberty School District.

Some time before 1860 a privately run school called Oakdale was established on the Belzora road nearby. Later, area residents were served by a school called Sandale, located about five miles from the church.

By 1866 the Sand Spring post office had closed. The Sandale school burned down about 1929 and local children attended classes at the Liberty church.

In 1932, about four years before it consolidated with Hawkins, the Sandale school district reported a total of 107 students. The 1940 discovery of the Hawkins oil field led to the construction of the densely populated Humble (later Hawkins) Camp just to the south of the Liberty Baptist Church. The Liberty Baptist Church celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1955 and was still active in 1989 when it served almost 350 members living in a ten-mile radius.

Holly Springs, Texas. Holly Springs, or Holly Spring, was located seven miles northeast of Pine Mills, then known as Liberty Hill, and it was probably near Gunstream Lake in east central Wood County.

The Holly Springs community was named for the nearly natural springs of that name and was one of the earliest communities in the county.

At the petition of Swedish immigrant Peter Magnus Gunstream, who was one of the county’s first commissioners and the founder of Holly Springs, the community received a post office in 1852.

In 1853, the community formed the Holly Springs Baptist Church of Christ, one of the oldest churches in Wood County. By 1854 the church was holding meetings at the Liberty Hill Meeting House, also known as the Liberty Hill Chapel, which was probably located at what later became Pine Mills.

Around 1860 the church moved to the Mount Pisgah community, though it was called the Holly Springs Church until 1865 or 1866.

As early as 1857, Holly Springs and the nearby community of Little Hope shared a schoolhouse southwest of the Gunstream home. The first teacher was said to be 15-year-old Emily Smith who taught 15 students. No mention of a Holly Springs School District was made in 1884 when Wood County was divided into public school districts.

No further information came to light about Holly Springs and the community did not appear on the 1936 Wood County highway map.