Leslie Gould Hall was the fourth child of eleven children born to the union of Buster and Carrie Chism Hall. He was born on April 25th, 1897 at Hawkins.
He was educated in the Fouke public schools under the principal and teachers Ida W. Hawkins, H.M. Johnson, K.S.E. Henry, and Byron Freeman. Hall chose carpentry as his vocation and he used his skills to build his own houses and many others in the community.
In 1937, he joined Center Point Lodge # 208 and was responsible for remodeling the original building. During the 1940s, the L.G. Hall Chapter #19 of Royal Arch was organized.
In March of 1951, during the consolidation of the Crow-Fouke Common School District with the Hawkins Independent School District, the Hawkins school board granted the building and the top surface of the land to be used for a community center. L.G. Hall, with the help of the committee, led in the rebuilding of the Fouke Community Center.
Hall had the idea of forming a family reunion. The first Hall reunion was held on the second Sunday in September of 1965 on the B.H. Hall estate near the banks of the beautiful, newly-created Lake Hawkins.
In 1966, Gould and his nephew, M.C. McCalla, were the first to build boat houses for owners of lake front land on the new Lake Hawkins. Due to the development of this lake, many people from the Dallas metroplex were seeking locations to build and establish permanent homes in the area.
The first question buyers would ask was where would they get water for their homes. They wondered if a well would be their only water supply.
At that point, Leslie Gould Hall became interested in forming a corporation that would solve the water problem. In March of 1969, Gould began taking donations of $50 per family to make a down payment to take care of legal procedures.
House to house meetings were held and from these meetings the name of the persons who would serve an initial directors were recorded, as follows: L.G. Hall of Hawkins, Mrs. Leon Wells of Hawkins, Mrs. Helenlouise Wilson, Hawkins; W.E. Morris, of Mineola, J.W. Whittaker, of Winnsboro, as well as L.D. Gage of Hawkins, R.S. Ray of Hawkins, J.W. Clanton of Hawkins and V.G. Gore of Winnsboro.
This was legally signed by everybody and recorded by L.G. Hall, president of the Fouke Water Supply Corporation on July 8th, 1871 and so the water supply corporation was born.
The Fouke Water Corporation in 1871 started with approximately 123 members. This rose to 1,270 members a number of years later and it has continued to grow until the present day. As a side note, Wood County has had very many people from the Dallas-Fort Worth area come to Wood County, were impressed with what they saw. They moved to the county and have greatly contributed to all aspects of life in the area.
NOTE: The Gazette Website, hlrgazette.com has archived over 5 years of these valuable historical accounts for the free use of our readers. The site also has a search feature that covers a smilar period of time and includes many other items that have appeared in the Gazette. Example: try a search on Obama.
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