Kirk
Kirk, Limestone County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Settlement began in this area in the 1870s-1880s. A community here, originally called Elm Grove, became known as Kirk when a post office established in 1887 was named for local merchant Jepitha N. Kirk. The first postmaster was William Hume McKnight. In 1884 G. W. and M. J. Swafford donated land for a school and cemetery. William M. and Annie J. Jacobs sold adjoining land in 1887 for the graveyard, a school, and for churches in Kirk. At its peak, Kirk was a thriving community of several hundred people and included homes, businesses, churches, and a post office. It also contained cotton gins, fraternal organizations and a telephone exchange. A two-story school containing six classrooms was built in 1911 at this site. In 1927 the community, led by school board president W.C. Curry and school principals Vernon Evans and J. B. Brown, Jr., built a large gymnasium/community hall (known locally as the Community House) just north of the school. Kirk's decline began with the great depression of the 1930s. In 1942 the last class graduated from Kirk High School, and the Kirk School consolidated with schools in Mart in 1952. Only a few homes and the cemetery remain in the area. (1997)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Settled in the 1870s and 80s as Elm Grove, this community was renamed Kirk when its 1887 post office honored local merchant Jepitha N. Kirk. Land donated for schools, churches, and a cemetery anchored a town that grew to several hundred people, with cotton gins, a telephone exchange, a two-story schoolhouse, and a community hall. The Depression began its decline; the school consolidated with Mart's in 1952, leaving little but a few homes and the cemetery.
Why it matters
Kirk's full life cycle — from crossroads settlement to thriving town to near-vanished place — is a compact portrait of the rural Texas communities the 20th century left behind.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Jepitha N. Kirk
- · William Hume McKnight
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First Baptist Church of Groesbeck
Groesbeck, TX
When the Houston & Texas Central Railroad routed past Old Springfield in 1871, the new town of Groesbeck drew away settlers — including Baptists whose congregation traced back to an 1846 church. Organized in 1876 and shaped by traveling revivalists such as W. E. Penn, the church grew alongside the young railroad town. One early member, L. L. Foster, went on to serve as a Texas Railroad Commissioner and president of Texas A&M.
Tehuacana
Tehuacana, TX
Perched on one of the highest points between Dallas and Houston, Tehuacana was home to the Tehuacana Indians, a Wichita people who farmed here until Cherokee raids destroyed them in the early 1830s. Settler John Boyd secured a Mexican land grant in 1835, and the town he built even vied to become the state capital in 1850. Its Presbyterian academy helped spark the founding of Trinity University in 1869, and later colleges kept the hilltop a seat of learning for generations.
Tehuacana Cemetery
Tehuacana, TX
Tehuacana grew up around John Boyd, a Republic of Texas congressman who moved here in the 1840s and opened the town's first post office in his store in 1847. His gift of land and money brought Trinity University to the hilltop town in 1869, and the cemetery's oldest documented grave belongs to his infant granddaughter, who died in 1850. Among the many small headstones testifying to the frontier's harshness lie college founders, a state comptroller, and Boyd himself, a roll call of the town's rise as an early Texas education center.
Stranger Community, Cemetery and Churches
Marlin, TX
Settled as Blue Ridge before 1850, this community reorganized on land donated by David Barclay and grandsons of Thomas Garrett after Garrett's estate closed the original site. A visiting Frenchman suggested the name Stranger around 1870, and by 1869 a Methodist-Presbyterian Union Church and a Baptist church were holding services that doubled as the first schools. Once home to a cotton gin, stores, a stagecoach inn, and mills, Stranger today keeps only its cemetery and churches, used for biannual homecomings.