Starrville Community

Starrville's decline began with a refusal. The Handbook of Texas says that in the late 1870s local leaders would not give the Tyler Tap Railroad a route through town, and many residents and businesses moved to Winona, a growing rail stop. Before that, in August 1860, residents formed a patrol out of fear of slave insurrections; no incidents were recorded. In summer 1862 Gen. Henry McCulloch and his troops camped at Starrville on the way to Little Rock, one of the county's largest encampments of the war. The town had about 200 people in 1892 and 122 in 1904.

What the plaque says

Starrville Community In 1852 the Rev. Joshua Starr, a Methodist minister from Alabama, bought 640 acres of land here on the Dallas-Shreveport Road. Platting Starrville, one of the earliest towns in Smith County, he sold lots with deed covenants against gambling and liquor. In 1853 he helped organize Starr Lodge No. 118, A. F. & A. M.; Methodists and Masons shared a 2-story building which the church bought from Starr in 1854. The post office was moved from nearby Gum Spring to Starrville in 1857. The town thrived with stores and overnight lodgings for freighters. It had grist mills, sawmills, foundries, and a wagon factory; music teachers, dentists, physicians, photographers. Its churches and schools were highly influential. The Methodists supported a female high school; the Baptists founded Ann Judson Female School. A Union academy, male high school, and female college also existed before the Civil War (1861-65). Bypassing of Starrville by the Tyler Tap Railroad in the 1870s brought population losses. In 1907 the post office and the Masonic Lodge were removed to Winona. The schools of Starrville and Baker Springs were consolidated in 1924, and later were merged with the Winona public school system. (1977)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tyler State Park — 9.8 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.
• Camp Ford Historic Park — 10 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.
• Goodman-LeGrand House and Museum — 13 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.

More markers nearby

• First Baptist Church of Winona — 3.4 mi
• Elisha Everett Lott — 3.5 mi
• In the vicinity of Harris' place — 5.9 mi
• Nicholas Wren — 5.9 mi