Omen (Canton) Community

Omen has worn six names. Arnold O'Brien's post office was Round Hill in December 1849, then Canton in 1851, Clopton in 1852 because another Canton was the Van Zandt County seat, Troup in 1854, Old Canton in 1879 and Omen in 1880, at Professor A. W. Orr's suggestion. The Handbook of Texas says Orr made the Summer Hill Select School a success from 1876, and by 1892 it had 335 students and ten teachers. Free public schooling arrived in 1901, the school closed in 1906, and a 1939 WPA building served Omen until the schools joined Arp's in 1943.

What the plaque says

Omen (Canton) Community Promoters Alexander Douglas, Thomas Weatherby, and Mitus White platted the townsite of Canton in 1850 near the junction of two main roads, one leading to the county seat at Tyler. Although the post office was renamed Clopton in 1852 and the name was changed to Troup in 1854, the village continued to be known as Canton for many years. The first store opened in 1852 and soon the community had a tanyard, blacksmith shop, cabinet and wagon shop, hotel, school, several doctors, churches, and a Masonic Lodge. The 1860 census showed 34 households in the town. When the International & Great Northern Railroad bypassed Canton in the 1870s, many businesses moved away. In 1880 the town and post office adopted the name Omen. For 30 years, Omen was the location of the Summer Hill Select School, a coeducational boarding school directed by A. W. Orr (1849-1924) of Georgia. This highly-regarded institution drew students from all parts of Texas as well as from out of state. The closing of the post office in 1906 and the school hastened Omen's decline. Oil discoveries during the 1930s revived the community briefly, but with the depression the population dwindled further and Omen became a rural village. (1978)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• New London Museum and Cenotaph — 9.7 mi
  A volunteer-run museum beside the pink granite cenotaph for the March 1937 school gas explosion, holding a model of the school, a blackboard from that day and an odorizer device.
• Goodman-LeGrand House and Museum — 15 mi
  A Tyler house begun in 1859 as four rooms, enlarged by the Goodman family over 73 years, and left to the city in 1939 with its furnishings, in a garden that fills a city block.
• Tyler Rose Garden and Rose Museum — 15 mi
  More than 38,000 rose bushes of about 600 cultivars in a free city garden, beside a museum of the Texas Rose Festival, which began in 1933, and of the rose industry.
• Camp Ford Historic Park — 16 mi
  A free county park north of Tyler on the site of the largest Confederate prison camp west of the Mississippi, with a kiosk, an interpretive trail and a historical society museum downtown.

More markers nearby

• Sartain Homestead — 4.5 mi
• First Presbyterian Church, U. S. of Troup — 5.1 mi
• Bascom Cemetery — 8.1 mi
• Henry's Chapel United Methodist Church — 8.2 mi