Odds Community

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Odds Community in Limestone County. Now, every place worth knowing has a story, and some places are worth knowing just for their name alone. Odds, Texas.

Go ahead and let that sit for a second. Odds, Texas. The marker will tell you flat out that nobody knows for certain how that name came to be.

Several theories, it says. But it won't pick a winner. And honestly, that might be the most fitting thing about a place called Odds.

The origin of the name is, well, anybody's guess. But the story of the community itself, that one we can tell. It starts around 1854, when the David Barron family arrived and founded what would become a dispersed agricultural settlement out in Limestone County.

More families followed. The John Wilford Erskine family, R.A. McAllister, the William Criswell family.

Folks putting down roots in land that asked a lot of them. In those early days the settlement went by a different name entirely: Buffalo Mott. That's what the people called it.

But when a post office was established in 1899, the post office department had other ideas. They requested a name change, and Buffalo Mott became Odds. The first postmaster was a man named Frank R.

Adair. He took the appointment, sorted the mail, kept things moving. Mail service ran until 1906, when the post office closed and the mail got rerouted to Thornton.

Seven years of official postal life, and then, quiet. Also around 1899, the first cotton gin in Odds was constructed. Now, here's where the story takes a turn.

That gin burned soon after it went up. Burned. But the community didn't walk away from it.

They replaced it. And that rebuilt gin became the economic center not just of Odds but of the surrounding area, drawing from both Limestone and Falls counties. Cotton was the thread that tied the region together, and the gin at Odds was where that thread ran through.

The same year that gin went up, 1899, the Locust Grove school district was formed to serve the children of Odds and the area around it. That school district operated for over fifty years, until it was consolidated with the Groesbeck Independent School District in 1949. Two churches anchored the spiritual life of the community.

The Odds Methodist Church, dating to around 1903, and the Locust Grove Baptist Church, dating to around 1912. For a good while they kept separate buildings and part-time pastors. But as the population began to thin out, the two congregations made a decision that the marker calls a point of pride: a joint Sunday school, held together in the Methodist Church building.

Two different denominations, one room, one community. That formal union lasted for several years. Today, Odds remains.

Not a bustling town, not a dot on most maps that draws a crowd, but a scattered group of homes and a reminder, the marker says, of the pioneer settlers of this area. The David Barron family showed up around 1854, planted something in that Limestone County soil, and what grew from it outlasted a burned gin, a closed post office, and decades of a dwindling population. Against the odds, you might say.

Well. The marker doesn't say that. But Odds does.

What the marker says

The Odds Community, a dispersed agricultural settlement, was founded upon the arrival of the David Barron family circa 1854. Additional settlers soon arrived in the area, including the John Wilford Erskine family, R.A. McAllister and the William Criswell family. Although the settlement was originally known as “Buffalo Mott,” the name was changed to Odds upon the request of the post office department when a post office was established in 1899. It is unclear how the name “Odds” was chosen, although there are several theories explaining its origin. Frank R. Adair was appointed as Odds’ first postmaster, but mail service to the community ran only until 1906, when the post office was closed and mail was routed to Thornton. the first cotton gin in Odds was constructed circa 1899, but it burned soon after and was replaced. The gin served as the economic center of the community and the surrounding area, stretching into both Limestone and Falls counties. The Locust Grove school district was formed in 1899 to serve the children of Odds and the surrounding area and operated for over fifty years, until it was consolidated with the Groesbeck Independent School District in 1949. The Odds Methodist Church (c. 1903) and the Locust Grove Baptist Church (c. 1912) both served the community of Odds. For several years the churches maintained separate buildings and part time pastors, but a declining population led to a joint Sunday school, held in the Methodist Church building. This formal union lasted for several years and was a point of pride for the residents of odds. Today, the community of Odds remains as a scattered group of homes, and as a reminder of the pioneer settlers of the area. (2009)