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Town names with a twist
When it came to naming their towns,
East Texans were not shy about their selections. Consider these
examples.
Jumbo, in Panola County, got its
name from an elephant in P.T. Barnum’s circus. One of the largest
African elephants in captivity, Jumbo was killed by a train while the
circus was unloading in a Ontario, Canada, freight yard.
Rake Pocket, also in Panola County,
was named for the way merchants treated their customers. The community
was later known as Pine Hill.
Shakerag in Rusk County got its name
from the sight of a young baseball player running the bases with a rag
shaking in his back pocket.
Pee Dee in Madison County got its
name from the Pee Dee Indians of South Carolina. A family also named
Pee Dee settled in Madison County and all eight members of the family
died when someone poisoned a spring used by the family.
Buena Vista, in Shelby County, was
originally known as Buck Snort when Granny Elizabeth Richards tried to
chase a large buck from her garden. The buck pawed the ground and
snorted at Granny.
Chickenfeather, in Rusk County, got
its name when several young men stole some chickens and cooked them.
They then threw the chicken feathers into a well, forcing men in the
community to clean out the well. The settlement today is known as New
Hope.
Looneyville, in Nacogdoches, was
named for a local family, not for the people living around Crazy Creek.
Goober Hill in Shelby County was
named for peanuts, known locally as goobers, that were a major crop in
the area.
Terrapin Neck, named for a turtle,
lies in Harrison County. The town was later named Gill for a ferryman.
Deweyville, in Newton County, was
called Possum Bluff because the woods were overrun with the critters.
Jot‘ Em Down in Delta County
was named for the Jot Em Down Store owned by mythical storekeepers Lum
Edwards and Abner Peabody of the long-running radio series of the 1930s
and 1940s.
Pluck, Plank and Pert. Pluck was, in
Polk County and was named because it supposedly took a “plucky
man” to live there. Plank was a sawmill town in Hardin County
where townspeople called the lumber “planks.” Pert, in
Anderson County, was a sawmill town known earlier as Mount Vernon.
Slip Up And Hitch is near the
Crossroads Cemetery on Farm Road 1 in Sabine County.
Yallo Busha in Camp County, often
called Yellow Bush, was named by Jim Keel, who was building a school
house and named it for a stream in his native Alabama. The name came
from an Indian phrase.
More names in a future column.
Bob Bowman of Lufkin is the author
of more than 40 books about East Texas.
He can be reached at bob-bowman.com
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