Hemming, Texas, Cooke County ghost town. (original) (raw)

History in a Pecan Shell

Hemming was named in 1890 to honor Gainesville banker C. C. Hemming who donated land for the fledgling community's first school.

1894 was a landmark year for Hemming with the establishment of a store / post office and a cotton gin. After 1905 mail was rerouted from Pilot Point and the post office closed. Two additional stores were opened between 1900 and 1905.

At its zenith, Hemming's population was 125 - a healthy figure for the times. Hemming became the cotton-processing center for its region and it reportedly shipped between 1,000 to 1,500 bales annually.

In 1907 a tornado hit Hemming, killing seven and demolishing nearly the entire town. An attempt was made to rebuild, but the damage was too severe. The gin closed in the early 20s and in 1929 the school consolidated with other small schools. Material from the Hemming school was recycled into a Union Grove School District building.

Hemming was reduced to only a church and a few residences by the mid-1930s. After WWII the population was reportedly reduced to ten.

It suffered the cruelest blow any small town can receive when it was removed from county maps in the 1980s.

A letter from former Cook Countian L. D. Clark, prompted this entry for Hemming. His letter:

"I was looking over what you have about ghost towns in Cooke County. There is another one whose traces may almost have disappeared by now: Hemming. It lay about 15 miles SSE of Gainesville, almost in Denton County. There can't be much left of it. I was last there in 1950 or '51, and found only a few foundations standing. The whole town was blown away by a tornado around 1900 and was never rebuilt. I grew up a few miles north of the site. My father always called that storm " the Hemming cyclone." - L. D. Clark, Smithville, Texas

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