CUT AND SHOOT, TEXAS. Cut and Shoot (Cut 'n Shoot, Cut N Shoot) is six miles east of Conroe and forty miles north of Houston in eastern Montgomery County. It was apparently named after a 1912 community confrontation that almost led to violence. According to the different versions of the story, the dispute was either over the design of a new steeple for the town's only church, the issue of who should be allowed to preach there, or conflicting land claims among church members. A small boy at the scene reportedly declared, "I'm going to cut around the corner and shoot through the bushes in a minute!" The boy's phrase apparently remained in residents' minds and was eventually adopted as the town's name. Population statistics were not reported for the community until the mid-1970s, when the number of residents was fifty. By 1980 the incorporated community reported a population of 809 and had built a new city hall and supported a school and several businesses. Cut and Shoot had a post office by the mid-1980s. The community's population was reported as 903 in 1990. In 2000 the population was 1,158.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: William Harley Gandy, A History of Montgomery County, Texas (M.A. thesis, University of Houston, 1952). Robin Navarro Montgomery, Cut 'n Shoot: The Roy Harris Story (Austin: Eakin Press, 1984).

Robin N. Montgomery