CLEARWATER, TEXAS. Clearwater is on Farm Road 1448 twelve miles south of Mount Vernon in southern Franklin County. It was originally between Cypress Creek and Dry Cypress Creek, but the streams were altered by the impoundment of Lake Cypress Springs and Lake Bob Sandlin. Clearwater was named for the water in Cypress Creek. Anglo settlement in the area began in the 1860s, and a community was in existence by the early 1870s. In the 1930s the community had a sawmill, a gin, a store, a church, and a school. The population was estimated at twenty-five in 1933 and at fifty in 1945. In 1985 Clearwater had a church and cemetery and widely scattered houses.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Billy Hicks and Doris Meek, comps., Historical Records of Franklin County, Texas (Mount Vernon, Texas: Franklin County Historical Survey Committee, 1972).

Cecil Harper, Jr.