DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker's got the story of Mars Community, and here's my telling of it. Now, out in Van Zandt County, where two old roads cross each other like an X drawn in red East Texas clay, there was once a place that flourished. A real, live community.
And they called it Mars. It all started at that crossroads — the Tyler-Porter's Bluff Road and the Canton-Athens Road, the very routes that are now FM 2339 and FM 773. Roads like that have a way of drawing people in.
And among the earliest to arrive were John Ammons and his son-in-law, Henry Washington Brown, who showed up in 1869 and purchased three hundred and twenty acres of land. That's a serious commitment to a place. That's roots.
By 1871, Ammons had deeded two of those acres to the Pleasant Ridge Church and school for constructing a church building and a schoolhouse. Right there, you've got the bones of a community — faith and education, planted in the ground. Now, the farmers in this part of Van Zandt County started out growin' wheat.
But cotton — cotton had other plans. It moved in and took over as the primary crop, the way cotton had a habit of doing all across Texas. And where cotton goes, a gin follows.
H. W. Brown built a cotton gin and grist mill for the community.
Then came a blacksmith shop. Then two mercantile stores. That crossroads was becomin' something.
Subsequent cotton gin operators stepped up after Brown — T. J. Bristow, E.
P. Miller, W. R.
Dyer, and W. W. McWilliams, each one keeping the wheels turning and the cotton movin'.
On the mercantile side, local tradition holds that H. W. Brown, Thomas Hobbs, T.
O. Wells, W. A. "Algie" Harville Senior, and J.
W. Barefoot all ran operations there at one time or another. That's a lot of commerce for a crossroads.
In 1891, a post office was established to serve the settlement — which tells you this place had earned official recognition. But here's a wrinkle: the post office wasn't called Mars at first. It went by Acme.
Seven years later, the name was changed to Mars, to reflect what the community itself had been called all along. Sometimes the paperwork just has to catch up to the people. But the story doesn't hold at its peak forever.
Population declined. The post office closed in 1907. The school consolidated with the Bois D'Arc School in 1916.
And by about 1930, the community that had flourished since the 1880s had faded from that crossroads. Little physical evidence remains of Mars Community today. But that marker standing at the intersection of those two old roads reminds you that this was once a place of cotton gins and church pews, of mercantile counters and a post office with two different names.
A whole world, drawn into being by a crossroads — and slowly drawn away when the roads stopped needin' it. Sometimes a community's greatest legacy is simply the story it leaves behind.
What the marker says
Mars Community A settlement known as Mars flourished at this crossroads from the 1880s until about 1930. The intersection of the Tyler-Porter's Bluff Road (now FM 2339) and the Canton-Athens Road (now FM 773) provided a likely site for a community to develop. Early settlers in the area included John Ammons and his son-in-law, Henry Washington Brown, who arrived in 1869 and purchased 320 acres of land. By 1871, Ammons had deeded two of his acres to the Pleasant Ridge Church and school for constructing a church building and schoolhouse. Wheat was the original crop that area farmers grew, but cotton soon replaced it as the primary crop. H. W. Brown built a cotton gin and grist mill for the community, and a blacksmith shop and two mercantile stores soon followed. Subsequent cotton gin operators included T. J. Bristow, E. P. Miller, W. R. Dyer and W. W. McWilliams. According to local tradition, the mercantile operations were run by H. W. Brown, Thomas Hobbs, T. O Wells, W. A. "Algie" Harville, Sr., and J. W. Barefoot. In 1891, a post office was established to serve the settlement. Originally called Acme, the station's name was changed seven years later to mars to reflect the name of the community. A declining population caused the post office to close in 1907 and the school to consolidate with the Bois D'Arc School in 1916. Although little physical evidence remains of the Mars Community, its history helps illustrate the story of cotton gin settlements in Texas. (2001)