Edna Hill Community

Duane's take

The way I tell it, I'm working straight off the official marker for Edna Hill Community out in Erath County, so let me set the scene right. Way back in the 1850s, pioneers came pushing into Texas's western Cross Timbers region, and what they found stopped them in their tracks. Abundant grassland.

Timber. Water. The kind of country that tells a tired traveler: this is the place.

So they stayed, and they put the land to work. Ranching and cotton production, those were the twin engines of early life out here. The roots went down deep.

Deep enough that by about 1863, they'd established the Barbee Cemetery nearby. You know a community is serious about a place when it starts burying its people there. Now, a community needs more than good grazing and good cotton.

It needs a gathering point, a reason for neighbors to be neighbors. That came in 1904, when a school was built right here on land donated by a man named Brack Salyer. And when it came time to put a name on that school, and on the community growing up around it, Brack Salyer looked to his own family.

He named them both for his granddaughter, Edna Wilson. Edna Hill. Not a bad thing, having a whole community named after you.

For a while, things hummed along. But trouble has a way of arrivin' on schedule. Edna Hill began its decline in the 1920s, and then the 1930s depression came and pressed down harder still.

By the early 1990s, when folks took stock of what remained, the answer was a short list. A Baptist church. A community center.

A few homes. That's what was left of the grassland and timber and water that once called pioneers in from the road. Edna Hill never disappeared entirely, though.

And there's something to be said for that.

What the marker says

Abundant grassland, timber, and water induced pioneers to settle in this area of Texas's western Cross Timbers region in the 1850s. Ranching and cotton production dominated early land use. Barbee Cemetery was established nearby about 1863. A community developed near a school built here in 1904 on land donated by Brack Salyer. The school and community were named for Salyer's granddaughter Edna Wilson. The 1930s depression continued a decline of Edna Hill which began in the 1920s. By the early 1990s all that remained was Baptist church, community center, and a few homes. (1994)