Wills Point
Directory
Home |
Community & Government |
City Numbers
| Point
City of Point
Rains County
Texas
A Brief Town History POINT, TEXAS. Point is at the intersection of U.S. Highway 69
with Farm roads 47 and 514, eight miles northwest of Emory and sixty
miles east of Dallas in northwest Rains County. It originated about 1880
as a flag station and post office on a section of the Missouri, Kansas,
and Texas Railroad being built from Mineola to Greenville. Residents
proposed the name of Rice's Point, in honor of William Rice, a
Kentuckian who had settled the area in the 1840s when it was a part of
Van Zandt County. The post office rejected that and several other names
because they were already in use. In 1890 Point had fifty residents, a
public school, and four churches. On August 28, 1902, ten men, led by
newspaperman Isaac Newton Gresham,qv met in Point and signed a charter
to establish the Farmers Educational and Cooperative Union of America.
The Farmers Union,qv as it is generally called, became a national
organization by 1905 and enrolled its one-millionth member three years
later. The organization became so large that it had to move its
headquarters to Mineola because the volume of mail was more than the
Point post office could handle. In 1913 Point established the first
independent school district in Rains County and erected a two-story
brick schoolhouse. Also that year a newspaper, the Point Enterprise,
began publication. By 1914 the number of inhabitants reached 600. The
Great Depressionqv caused a drop in the Point population from 600 in
1931 to 308 in 1933. The number of businesses likewise fell from
twenty-five to eighteen. Point's decline paralleled the demise of the
cotton industry in Rains County, where production fell from a near
record high of 6,420 bales in 1931 to fewer than 3,000 bales by 1935.
In the early 1940s U.S. Highway 69, paralleling the MKT railroad from
one corner of the county to the other, was paved. This may have
accounted for a mild resurgence in population, which reached 420 by
1943. In 1945 Point had 350 residents and eleven businesses. Through the
1950s and into the 1960s the population remained about 400, and the
number of businesses stayed around fifteen. During the mid-195Os the MKT
line was abandoned. In 1957 Iron Bridge Dam was constructed on the
Sabine River to form Lake Tawakoni, which by the time it reached its
fullest extent in 1960 was only four miles from Point. In the late
1960s Point reported 589 inhabitants, as residential development began
on the western shore of the lake. The community was also incorporated at
this time. By 1970 the lakeside residents had organized themselves and
incorporated the town of East Tawakoni. Consequently, the population of
Point declined to 419 in the 1970 census. Thanks to tourism and to the
town's ongoing role as a local center for agricultural trade, Point
continued to grow slowly but steadily throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
Two small manufacturing concerns have located in Point, a metal casting
plant and a maker of wire products. Point's population in 1990 was 645.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: 100th Anniversary of Rains County (Emory, Texas: Hill,
1970). Steven R. Davis -
Texas
State Historical Association
|
