Gent Village

Settlers had a church and school called Sand Springs on Gent Mountain by 1854, but a village did not form until the late 1870s. The post office opened in 1879 as Gent or Ghent. The name's origin is uncertain: one account cites Ghent, Belgium, and another a greeting of the time, 'Howdy Gent.' By 1890 an estimated 500 people lived there, with a school, a cotton gin, two general stores, two churches and several grist and saw mills. The post office closed in 1906, and by 1913 most merchants had moved to Maydelle.

What the plaque says

Gent Village Located on top of Gent Mountain between two creeks, the village of Gent was settled in the 1850s primarily by families from Alabama and Tennessee in search of good farmland. The early settlers quickly established religious and educational institutions, and by 1900 the village boasted several stores, mills and cotton gins as well. Construction of the Texas State Railroad from Rusk to Palestine and the founding of the town of Maydelle (1.5 mi. s.) in 1910 pulled business away from Gent. Gradually the village was abandoned, and today not a single structure remains. (1983)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas State Railroad Excursion Train — 17 mi
  A round trip of about 25 miles of track between the Palestine and Rusk depots through the Piney Woods, on a line built by prison labor and reopened as a tourist railroad in 1976.
• Caddo Mounds State Historic Site — 19 mi
  Three earthen mounds of an ancestral Caddo village and ceremonial center on the old El Camino Real, settled about A.D. 800 and still sacred to Caddo people, with a grass house and visitor center.

More markers nearby

• Maydelle — 2.2 mi
• Mewshaw State Sawmill and Maydell CCC Camp — 4.8 mi
• Dialville — 4.9 mi
• Old Rusk Tramway — 6.4 mi