St. Paul

Captain Roy F. Hall's column gathered readers' memories of a village that vanished. St. Paul was a stop for freighters on the Millwood to McKinney road and one of the few voting places in the county around the Civil War. After Catholic services ended, the church was sold to Walter Bellmyre, who built a house south of Lucas from its lumber. The Dump or Morris school, attended by Catholic and Protestant children alike, became a dwelling, and the Methodist church was moved to Wylie as an educational building. The gin burned and the store closed.

What the plaque says

St. Paul Located in South-Central Collin County, St. Paul is one of the oldest communities in the county. The name of the town comes from the St. Paul Catholic Church, which was established in 1856 and located in the area. At one time, the community was known as dump. In the late 1800s, St. Paul had two schools, two churches, a cemetery, a post office, a general store, a grist mill, blacksmith shop and a gin. The post office was established on May 12, 1876 with W.E. Marriott as the first postmaster. In addition to the Catholic Church, Methodist services began in the homes of Mark L. Morris and will Spurgeon as early as 1856 until a permanent church home was built in the late 1890s. Education in the area began in individual homes until public schools were established. The St. Paul community had two schools, at the Catholic Church and the Morris school, constructed in 1873, that shared the building with the Methodist church. The school at the Catholic Church was a two-story building built by the community. The upper floor was used by the ancient order of Hibernians, an Irish Catholic organization. At some point, these two schools combined as the surrounding community was not large enough to support them both. The schools consolidated with the Wylie school district, and the Catholic and Methodist congregations merged with churches in Wylie. St. Paul incorporated in 1971. This rural, agricultural community played a significant role in the early development of south-central Collin County. (2013)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary — 8.3 mi
  A 289-acre sanctuary in McKinney that Bessie Heard founded at the age of 80, with five habitats, a 50-acre wetland and 6.5 miles of trails.
• Rockwall County Historical Foundation & Museum — 10 mi
  A small museum in Harry Myers Park that keeps the evidence on Rockwall's rock wall, sandstone dikes that geologists call natural and folk tales call built.
• Fair Park — 22 mi
  The State Fair of Texas grounds since 1886, where the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition left one of the country's greatest concentrations of Art Deco exposition buildings.
• African American Museum, Dallas — 23 mi
  Founded in 1974 at Bishop College, a free Fair Park museum holding the Sepia photograph archive, African art and A. Maceo Smith's papers, and the story of the Hall of Negro Life.

More markers nearby

• Wylie Methodist Church — 1.8 mi
• First Baptist Church of Wylie — 2.6 mi
• City of Wylie — 2.7 mi
• McMillen Cemetery — 3.6 mi