City of Blooming Grove

Blooming Grove grew fast once the railroad came. The Handbook of Texas gives the population as about 200 in 1884 and 800 in 1890, the year townspeople sought incorporation. By 1900 the town had four gins, four churches, two gristmills, two lumberyards, two hotels, two restaurants and a community fair. Then cotton prices fell. The population dropped from a high of 1,500 in 1933 to 821 in 1936, and rail service ended around 1940, closing stores and gins and failing banks as farmers who could not borrow moved away.

What the plaque says

City of Blooming Grove The history of Blooming Grove can be traced to the small village of Gradyville, established in the 1860s and named for two brothers, R. J. and W. D. Grady, who operated the general store. When the area was granted a postal station in 1871, the name Blooming Grove was chosen. Grady's store served as the location for the post office, with W. H. Glass as postmaster. When a branch of the Cotton Belt Railroad opened in this area in 1888, the village of Gradyville shifted one mile northeast toward the rail line and became known as Blooming Grove. Its residents voted for incorporation in 1890, and T. J. Scarborough was elected first mayor, with T. H. Butcher as first city marshal. Always a rural community, Blooming Grove has depended heavily on its cotton production and cattle raising for its economic base. Several institutions have provided the city with strength and continuity throughout its history. Churches founded in the Gradyville area that were maintained in this townsite include Blooming Grove Methodist, Olive Grove Baptist, Blooming Grove Christian, and First Baptist. Public schools began in 1869, and the Blooming Grove Masonic lodge was chartered in 1888. The newspaper, "Blooming Grove Times", was founded in 1890. (1984)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Petroleum Industry Park — 15 mi
  The pipes and drilling tower mark where a city water well struck oil on June 9, 1894, the start of the first Texas field to produce oil and gas in important quantities.
• Ellis County Courthouse — 22 mi
  J. Riely Gordon's courthouse of 1897 in Pecos red sandstone and pink granite, with twenty-one carved stone faces and two cornerstones left by a quarrel over its building.
• Hill County Courthouse — 25 mi
  Wesley C. Dodson's limestone Second Empire courthouse of 1890 on the Hillsboro square, gutted by fire on New Year's Day 1993 and rededicated in 1999 after a rebuilding that two Willie Nelson concerts helped pay for.
• Blind Lemon Memorial Cemetery — 25 mi
  The Freestone County grave of the Texas blues singer Blind Lemon Jefferson, who recorded for Paramount in Chicago from 1926 and died there in December 1929.

More markers nearby

• Blooming Grove United Methodist Church — steps away
• Grange Hall Cemetery — 4.2 mi
• Barry Baptist Church — 4.7 mi
• Barry — 4.7 mi