Rhonesboro

Rhonesboro took its trade from a neighbor. G. H. Baird's 1946 county history describes Shady Grove as a busy trading center, with two general stores, two blacksmith shops, a drug store, a post office, a gin and gristmill, and a telephone switchboard in a private home. Baird says the railroad was built north of Shady Grove about 1905, Rhonesboro was laid out, and most of the business moved. Shady Grove lost its place as a trading center. The plaque says 1902; Wikipedia's Texas Southern Railway article has the line heading west past Gilmer by 1901.

What the plaque says

Rhonesboro Founded 1902; Named for W. M. Rhone, only sawmill operator in area until 1901, when arrival of Marshall & East Texas Railroad created a town which grew to have 15 sawmills, 10 stores, 2 churches, a school, hotel, bank, gin, and cotton yard. Mill operators were Connally; Barton and Smith; McWhorter; Cone and Watkins; Whitter; Dacus; Waterman; Nolan; James; Swann; Beavers and Meek; P. K. Williams; M. C. and F. C. Florence; Roger and J. O. Schrum. After pine forest here was depleted (1917), the mills moved and the railroad was abandoned. (1967)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Governor Hogg Shrine — 18 mi
  Quitman's 27-acre city park, once a state historical park, where two houses tied to James Stephen Hogg's marriage stand beside an arboretum, a nature walk and the grounds of the Old Settlers Reunion.
• Lake Bob Sandlin State Park — 21 mi
  A 1987 state park on a 9,000-acre reservoir, where a Republic of Texas stockade called Fort Sherman stood in 1838 and the Caddo lived from A.D. 800 to 1860, now with fishing piers, trails and cabins.
• Tyler State Park — 21 mi
  A 985-acre park eight miles north of Tyler, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps from 1935 to 1941 around a 64-acre spring-fed lake, with more than 13 miles of trails.
• Daingerfield State Park — 32 mi
  A pine-and-hardwood park built in 1935-39 by a white and a Black Civilian Conservation Corps company, with a dammed lake, Bass Lodge and a 2.4-mile loop trail around the water.

More markers nearby

• Harmony I.S.D. — 2.0 mi
• Little Mound Baptist Church and Cemetery — 2.3 mi
• Alex Earp — 5.0 mi
• Kelsey School — 5.5 mi