DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Starrville Community in Smith County. Now settle in, because this is a town that had everything — and I do mean everything — and then watched the railroad walk right past it like it wasn't even there. In 1852, the Reverend Joshua Starr, a Methodist minister who'd come up from Alabama, bought himself 640 acres right here on the Dallas-Shreveport Road.
Now, Reverend Starr wasn't just a man of the cloth — he was a man of the plat. He laid out Starrville, one of the earliest towns in Smith County, and when he sold those lots, he made sure the deed covenants said two things loud and clear: no gambling, and no liquor. That's the kind of town founder who means business before the ink is even dry.
The very next year, 1853, Reverend Starr helped organize Starr Lodge Number 118 of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons. The Methodists and the Masons — not always your most obvious roommates — shared a two-story building, which the church eventually bought from Starr himself in 1854. Then in 1857, the post office got moved over from nearby Gum Spring to Starrville, and if you know anything about how a town announces itself to the world, that's a signal that Starrville had arrived.
And arrive it did. Stores. Overnight lodgings for freighters rolling up and down that Dallas-Shreveport Road.
Grist mills, sawmills, foundries — a wagon factory. Music teachers, dentists, physicians, photographers. This was not some dusty crossroads, friend.
This was a going concern. The churches and schools were, the marker tells us, highly influential. The Methodists supported a female high school.
The Baptists founded the Ann Judson Female School. There was a Union academy, a male high school, and a female college — all of it humming along before the Civil War, before 1861. That's a town punching well above its weight on the East Texas frontier.
And then — well, then comes the part of the story that every booming little town in Texas knows in its bones. The Tyler Tap Railroad came through in the 1870s, and it did not stop in Starrville. It bypassed the town entirely.
And when a railroad bypasses you in that era, it doesn't just skip your station — it starts quietly siphoning off your future. Population losses followed. By 1907, the post office was removed to Winona, and the Masonic Lodge went with it.
In 1924, the schools of Starrville and Baker Springs were consolidated, and later those schools were merged into the Winona public school system. So that's Starrville — a town that started with covenants against vice, built itself into something remarkable, and got outrun not by scandal or fire, but by a railroad that simply chose a different road. The Dallas-Shreveport Road is still out there.
Starrville just got quieter along it.
What the marker says
In 1852 the Rev. Joshua Starr, a Methodist minister from Alabama, bought 640 acres of land here on the Dallas-Shreveport Road. Platting Starrville, one of the earliest towns in Smith County, he sold lots with deed covenants against gambling and liquor. In 1853 he helped organize Starr Lodge No. 118, A. F. & A. M.; Methodists and Masons shared a 2-story building which the church bought from Starr in 1854. The post office was moved from nearby Gum Spring to Starrville in 1857. The town thrived with stores and overnight lodgings for freighters. It had grist mills, sawmills, foundries, and a wagon factory; music teachers, dentists, physicians, photographers. Its churches and schools were highly influential. The Methodists supported a female high school; the Baptists founded Ann Judson Female School. A Union academy, male high school, and female college also existed before the Civil War (1861-65). Bypassing of Starrville by the Tyler Tap Railroad in the 1870s brought population losses. In 1907 the post office and the Masonic Lodge were removed to Winona. The schools of Starrville and Baker Springs were consolidated in 1924, and later were merged with the Winona public school system.