Amy Settlement

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Amy Settlement, out in Delta County. Now settle in, because this one starts with four brothers and ends with something that outlasted the town itself. In 1875, brothers David, Harrison, Madison, and Addison Hobbs packed up and left Mississippi, pointed themselves toward Texas, and set down roots in a place then known as the Big Creek Thicket.

Four brothers, one thicket, and a whole lot of ambition. A settlement took shape around them — folks started calling it Hobbs Thicket — and by the early 1880s the community had grown enough to put up a two-room schoolhouse. That's the kind of thing that tells you people are planning to stay.

Now, the roads around Hobbs Thicket were something else entirely. Muddy, stubborn, the kind of roads that made you rethink every errand. But the settlement grew anyway.

By 1894, a local store owner by the name of Robert A. Nickolson figured the place had earned itself a post office, and he applied for one. He asked for the name Hobbs.

The U.S. Postal Service said no — turned it down flat — and came back with a substitute: Amy. Just Amy.

Nobody seems to have asked why. Nicholson was selected as Amy's first postmaster, so at least he got something out of the deal. And Amy, whatever you thought of the name, kept growing.

By 1920, that little community had a post office, a doctor's office, a telephone switchboard, a general store, two churches, a barber shop, a blacksmith shop, and a cotton gin running on two large boilers fired by wood and coal. That gin was the heartbeat of the place. Then 1924 came around.

The gin burned down. And it was never rebuilt. You feel that pause?

Because the town sure did. The closing of that cotton gin set off a steady decline — the marker says it plain, precipitated it — and Amy began to come apart at the seams. In 1928, the school merged with the nearby Mulberry School System.

Then the 1950s rolled through and took what was left: Amy's last remaining church closed, the general store closed, and that was that. The town of Amy no longer existed. But here's the thing — and this is the part worth sittin' with.

Somewhere around 1920, the people of Amy had started a tradition of gathering together for homecoming activities. And long after the post office was gone, long after the gin was ash, long after the last church locked its doors, the former residents and their relatives kept right on coming back. The town disappeared.

The homecoming didn't. Some roots, it turns out, don't need a town to hold on.

What the marker says

In 1875 brothers David, Harrison, Madison, and Addison Hobbs left Mississippi and settled here in what was then known as the Big Creek Thicket. A settlement named Hobbs Thicket emerged and in the early 1880s the 2-room Hobbs Thicket Schoolhouse was built. Although travel over the area's muddy roads was difficult, Hobbs Thicket grew and in 1894 local store owner Robert A. Nickolson applied for a post office. The U.S. Postal Service turned down the initial name request of "Hobbs" and substituted "Amy." Nicholson was selected Amy's first postmaster. By 1920 Amy consisted of a post office, doctor's office, telephone switchboard, general store, two churches, barber shop, blacksmith shop, and cotton gin with two large boilers fired by wood and coal. The gin burned down in 1924 and was never rebuilt. The cotton gin's closing precipitated a steady decline in the town. In 1928 the school merged with the nearby Mulberry School System, and in the 1950s Amy's last remaining church and general store closed. For many years after the town of Amy no longer existed a number of its former residents and their relatives continued a tradition established about 1920 of gathering together for homecoming activities.