Poolville

Poolville's pool pulled a town toward it. The Handbook of Texas dates the town to the early 1880s and says it was named for a large pool of water just east of the townsite, with postal service beginning in 1883. The plaque places a saloon and store beside the pool about 1870, a decade earlier. The Handbook estimates just over 500 residents in 1920. After the Great Depression the number slipped to 350 in 1950 and 230 in 1980 and 1990, then climbed to 520 by 2000.

What the plaque says

Poolville The town of Poolville built up around a natural spring-fed pool in the Clear Fork of the Trinity River in Parker County. The pool, located one-half mile northeast of the present Poolville Town Square, was a well-known watering place for cattle herds on the way to market. Gradually a settlement grew around the pool area. About 1870 a saloon and a store owned by Jim Taylor provided residents a place to shop, trade, and visit. M.L. Scott operated a sawmill on the east end of the pool. About 1879 A.H. "Major" Dunn donated land for a townsite which led to business and residential growth. A log farmhouse near the pool had served as the community's first school, but after 1879 a building was erected in the new townsite for school and church purposes. Early 20th century business development included the first bank, organized in 1905; two hotels; two blacksmith shops; a post office; saddle and harness shop; wagon yard; telephone office; and a cotton gin. A newspaper, "The Poolville Searchlight" was published about 1910. Homes, churches, and schools completed the community. (1992)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lake Mineral Wells State Park and Trailway — 16 mi
  A Cross Timbers park on the old Camp Wolters grounds, built around a 1922 water-supply lake for a spa town, with Penitentiary Hollow's rock climbing and a 20-mile trailway.
• Chandor Gardens — 16 mi
  A portrait painter's English-and-Chinese garden rooms, blasted and planted from a bare 3.5-acre hillside in Weatherford beginning in 1936, abandoned after 1978 and reopened by the city in 2002.
• Wise County Courthouse — 24 mi
  J. Riely Gordon's granite Romanesque courthouse of 1895-96 in Decatur, built after fire destroyed the Second Empire courthouse and set off a fight over the county seat.
• Fort Richardson State Park and Historic Site — 24 mi
  The northernmost post of the Texas frontier line, outside Jacksboro, where a stone hospital and six other buildings stand from 1867 and a later Guard unit became the Lost Battalion.

More markers nearby

• Peaster Cemetery — 6.9 mi
• Whitt Cemetery — 9.2 mi
• Authon Cemetery — 9.2 mi
• Whitt Seminary — 9.4 mi