Historical Marker

Site of Volga Community

Houston County · Texas
Erected 1989

Volga's records are brief, but they show how quickly it peaked. The Handbook of Texas gives its post office as running from 1897 to 1917 and names J. A. Siddon as postmaster. Its first population record, in 1914, counted 100 residents, a telephone connection, four general stores and a cotton gin. By 1936 and again in 1945 the community was down to one business and twenty-five people, with a church reported in the latter year. The school was eventually combined with the Lovelady district. The community lay three miles north of Weldon.

What the plaque says

Site of Volga Community Westward-moving pioneers settled this area after the Civil War. Attracted by good farmland, timber, and water, they established homes and called their community High Prairie. It was renamed Volga in 1897, when a post office was established in Samuel Knox's store. His son, Samuel D. Knox, served as first postmaster. Although never formally platted or incorporated, Volga was an important early community. At its height the settlement boasted homes, stores, a cotton gin, sawmill, school, and church. An early building called Rough Edge served as church and school until 1893 , when the High Prairie Missionary Baptist Church of Christ was built. After it burned in 1905 a two-room building used for school and worship was erected, and in 1911 a new church was built. The Volga Community began to decline about 1917 after the post office was discontinued. In 1918 some of the town's young men were listed in World War I, and many Volga citizens died in the influenza epidemic. The school was consolidated with nearby communities, and the church was disbanded. After 1960 some descendants of Volga pioneers returned to resettle the area. (1989)

Where it stands

31.06566, -95.58152 · Directions

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