ATOY, TEXAS. Atoy is a rural community on Farm Road 343 and near Atoy Creek eight miles east of Rusk in eastern Cherokee County. The area was first settled in the 1840s, but a community did not develop there until after the Civil War. An Atoy post office operated in 1870–71, and a school was in operation by the mid-1890s. During the mid-1930s Atoy had a school, a church, a store, and a number of houses. After World War II the school was consolidated with the Rusk schools. In the early 1990s Atoy still had a church, a store, and a community center. By 1999 the store and the community center had closed down, and the community consisted of a cemetery, three churches, and scattered houses.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Cherokee County History (Jacksonville, Texas: Cherokee County Historical Commission, 1986).
