ASIA, TEXAS. Asia is a farming community north of U.S. Highway 287 in northern Polk County, two miles west of Corrigan and 100 miles north of Houston. It was founded by Mexican War veteran James Standley about 1859 and developed as a rural settlement around Standley's cabinet and blacksmith shops. During the Civil War Asia residents manufactured wagons and cannon carts for use by the Confederacy. Significant change came in the mid-1880s, when the Trinity and Sabine Railway was constructed through northern Polk County. To harvest the rich supply of timber in the area, the Allen Lumber Company of Houston built a sawmill at Asia; it furnished lumber for the railroad and drew scores of new residents to the site. Although the Allen company expanded operations in 1900, the cutting out of local forests, concentration of mills at nearby Corrigan, and general decline of the lumber industry between 1900 and 1910 led to Asia's demise. Only a few scattered residences remain.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ed Ellsworth Bartholomew, 800 Texas Ghost Towns (Fort Davis, Texas: Frontier, 1971). A Pictorial History of Polk County, Texas, 1846–1910 (Livingston, Texas: Polk County Bicentennial Commission, 1976; rev. ed. 1978).
