Wood County History

By LOU MALLORY — Chairperson, Wood County Historical Commission

Early Black communities in Wood County   2-18-06

Fouke, Texas. The Fouke Community is located on FM 2869 three miles northeast of Crow and less than a mile west of Lake Hawkins in southeast Wood County.

A community called Center was said to exist in the southern part of the county as early as 1866, and sometime around 1873 the inhabitants built a log building which was used as a church, school, lodge and for community meetings.

In 1879, a two-acre site for a Methodist Episcopal church was purchased for six dollars and a frame building was eventually constructed. The pastor also taught at the school which had all black students. The few white children in the community went to schools in Redland or Hawkins.   A Center School District was established when Wood County was divided into public school districts in 1884, although by 1896, records for that district ceased to exist. The community never had a post office and the name Center was changed to Fouke sometime after 1885 when George W. Fouke’s lumber company built a large sawmill in the area.

By the 1930s, Fouke had a number of dwellings concentrated at the intersection of several bladed earth roads two miles north of U.S. Highway 80. The community also had one business, two churches and a school. In 1932, the school had an enrollment of 111 black students and 17 white students.

By 1960, the community consisted of two churches and a few wifely scattered dwellings. Sometime after 1960, a dam on Little Sandy Creek formed Lake Hawkins and, by 1981, a number of new dwellings had appeared in the Fouke community which supported two churches, two businesses and a town hall or community center. High on hilly land, Fouke still thrives today. Readers can visit by turning off Highway 80 at FM 2869, or from FM 14, turn onto FM 2869 at Willful Crossing.

Two other early black communities have faded away. They are Muddy Creek Church and Green Grove.

Muddy Creek Church was a rural community on FM 69 four miles north of Quitman in north central Wood County. It was thought to be named for a nearby stream. A Muddy Creek School District was established in 1884, though no records exist for it as of 1896. In the 1930s, the community had a school, a church, cemetery, and a number of dwellings on country roads.

The land for the church and cemetery was said to have been donated by the families of two prominent black citizens, Elbert Jones and George Washington Parker. By the 1960s, the school and most of the dwellings had disappeared, however, Muddy Creek Church was indicated on the 1988 county highway map.

Green Grove community was a mile southwest of Hainesville in southern Wood County. Its farms were dispersed from just north of what later became FM 49, south to Lake Fork Creek.

The community was settled by black farmers shortly after the Civil War. It had a school, a church, a lodge hall and a store.

Around the turn of the century, most of the inhabitants left Green Grove to take urban jobs.

By 1968, only one family remained in the vicinity although descendents of the original settlers still owned land in the area.