Odds Community

The Handbook of Texas says Odds was settled about 1854 when David Barron located here, and that the name Odds replaced Buffalo Mott in 1899 at the Post Office Department's request. It speculates the name came from Odds, Kentucky. One store was running in 1900, and the post office closed in 1906. In 1946 the community reported sixty people, a school and two churches, a Cumberland Presbyterian church and the Locust Grove church. Baptist and Methodist congregations once shared a union church, with each preacher taking alternate Sundays. Twenty-four residents were counted in 2000.

What the plaque says

Odds Community The Odds Community, a dispersed agricultural settlement, was founded upon the arrival of the David Barron family circa 1854. Additional settlers soon arrived in the area, including the John Wilford Erskine family, R.A. McAllister and the William Criswell family. Although the settlement was originally known as "Buffalo Mott," the name was changed to Odds upon the request of the post office department when a post office was established in 1899. It is unclear how the name "Odds" was chosen, although there are several theories explaining its origin. Frank R. Adair was appointed as Odds' first postmaster, but mail service to the community ran only until 1906, when the post office was closed and mail was routed to Thornton. the first cotton gin in Odds was constructed circa 1899, but it burned soon after and was replaced. The gin served as the economic center of the community and the surrounding area, stretching into both Limestone and Falls counties. The Locust Grove school district was formed in 1899 to serve the children of Odds and the surrounding area and operated for over fifty years, until it was consolidated with the Groesbeck Independent School District in 1949. The Odds Methodist Church (c. 1903) and the Locust Grove Baptist Church (c. 1912) both served the community of Odds. For several years the churches maintained separate buildings and part time pastors, but a declining population led to a joint Sunday school, held in the Methodist Church building. This formal union lasted for several years and was a point of pride for the residents of odds. Today, the community of Odds remains as a scattered group of homes, and as a reminder of the pioneer settlers of the area. (2009)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Old Fort Parker — 15 mi
  A rebuilt 1830s family stockade near the Navasota River, where a May 1836 attack killed men of the Parker settlement and took five captives, among them nine-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker.
• Confederate Reunion Grounds State Historic Site — 18 mi
  Where Limestone County Confederate veterans gathered each summer from 1888, later a water supplier in the Mexia oil boom, now a Texas Historical Commission site on the Navasota River.
• Armstrong Browning Library — 26 mi
  A three-story Italian Renaissance library on the Baylor campus built to hold A. J. Armstrong's Browning collection, dedicated in December 1951 and now, by its own account, the world's largest of Browning material.
• Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum — 26 mi
  The official state repository of Texas Ranger memorabilia, opened in 1968 in Fort Fisher Park on the Brazos, named for a Ranger post of 1837 whose site no one has located.

More markers nearby

• Stranger Community, Cemetery and Churches — 5.8 mi
• Thornton Schools — 8.6 mi
• Eutaw — 9.7 mi
• Indian Battlefield — 11 mi