DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Site of Flora, out there in Smith County. Now, every town has a beginning, and Flora's begins with one man and a piece of East Texas land. James K.
Beene settled in this area in 1845 — before there was a post office, before there was a store, before there was much of anything. He just showed up and put down roots. Four years later, in 1849, he established a post office and gave it a name: Flora.
Then came the neighbors. John and Delila Austin, along with their daughter Mary and her husband Willis Jones, bought adjacent farms in 1850. Two families, side by side, out on the Dallas-Shreveport Road.
And it was right there, around those properties, that a community started to take shape. By 1853, James Monroe Luckey had opened Flora's first store. And right around that same time, Carmel Baptist Church was organized nearby.
A place to trade. A place to worship. The bones of a real town.
Then, in 1855, the first sale of a town lot in Flora was recorded — somebody looked at this little community and said, yes, I want in. And Flora kept growing. By 1860, this town could boast three doctors, two blacksmiths, a Masonic lodge, and three stores.
Three doctors, friends. That is not a crossroads settlement — that is a town with ambitions. But here's where the story turns, and it turns hard.
The Civil War years brought hardship, and hardship brought decline. The thriving community that had risen up along the Dallas-Shreveport Road began to falter. By 1871, all the businesses were gone.
The Masonic lodge had packed up and moved to Garden Valley. And Flora — the town James K. Beene had planted from nothing back in 1845 — became a ghost town.
From a post office to a ghost town in a little over two decades. The Dallas-Shreveport Road kept right on going, of course. It just didn't stop at Flora anymore.
What the marker says
James K. Beene settled in this area in 1845 and established a post office called Flora in 1849. John and Delila Austin and their daughter and son-in-law, Mary and Willis Jones, bought adjacent farms in 1850. Flora community grew up around their properties on the Dallas-Shreveport Road. By 1853, James Monroe Luckey had opened Flora's first store and Carmel Baptist Church was organized nearby. The first sale of a town lot in Flora was recorded in 1855. By 1860 the town boasted three doctors, two blacksmiths, a Masonic lodge and three stores. The hardships of the Civil War years brought about the decline of the thriving community. By 1871 all the businesses were gone, the Masonic lodge had moved to Garden Valley, and Flora became a ghost town. (2001)