Sharp
Sharp, Milam County, Texas
Marker Inscription
A farming and ranching community, Sharp traces its origins to the years immediately after the Civil War when settlers, attracted by the fertile black soil, began arriving in this area. The first business, a store, opened in 1892. It was soon joined by a blacksmith shop and the Davis General Store in 1896. Cotton was the principal crop of the area, and a gin opened in 1896. When a post office was established here in 1901, the name Sharp was chosen to honor Dr. William F. Sharp, a physician in Davilla (8 mi. W). An annual reunion of Sharp residents began in 1978.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In the fertile blackland prairie of Milam County, settlers drawn by the rich soil began putting down roots in the years just after the Civil War. By the 1890s a store, a blacksmith shop, and a cotton gin had knit the scattered farms into a recognizable community, and when the post office opened in 1901 the place took the name Sharp to honor a nearby physician. Cotton drove the local economy, and the tight-knit community endured well enough to launch an annual reunion in 1978.
Why it matters
Sharp is a small but telling example of how thousands of American farming communities coalesced across the postwar South and West around a gin, a store, and a post office name.
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Related people
- · Dr. William F. Sharp
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Lilac
Davilla vicinity, TX
Originally called Oak Point, this Milam County farming and stockraising settlement grew up around the farm of dentist and planter Dr. John H. Graves, who arrived in 1858. It was renamed Lilac when a post office opened in 1883, and the Graves family gave land for a school, a Baptist church, and a Methodist encampment. At its peak Lilac boasted stores, a cotton gin, and a blacksmith shop, but flooding in 1921 and the Great Depression sent it into decline.
City of Rogers
Rogers, TX
Founded in 1881 and named for Santa Fe Railroad official John D. Rogers, this Bell County town rode the great Central Texas cotton boom. Within a few years it had a post office and stores, and at its peak boasted schools, churches, a newspaper, three banks, and six cotton gins. Among its native sons were four Bell County sheriffs, including the county's first, William Reed.
City of Bartlett
Bartlett, TX
Settlers first trickled into this area in the 1830s, when Texas was still a republic, but the town of Bartlett itself waited until the 1870s, founded by J. Edward Pietzsch and Capt. John T. Bartlett. The railroad's arrival in 1882 turned the town into a major regional cotton market, and it incorporated in 1890 astride the Williamson–Bell county line — a boundary that literally divides some of its buildings. It has remained a trade hub for the surrounding farmland.
Reed's Lake
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