DEMOSS, TEXAS. DeMoss, near Oyster Lake four miles south of Palacios across Tres Palacios Bay in southwestern Matagorda County, probably took its name from the Lewis DeMoss land grant on which it was located. The surrounding area produced cotton and cattle, but after several crop failures and a 1914 attack of charbon (anthrax) that devastated cattle in the region, many of the settlers who could afford to leave did so. Still, in 1914 a one-room DeMoss school opened and in 1917 served eight grades. The school also hosted community church services. In the early 1920s the DeMoss school added a second room; by the early 1930s it had been consolidated with Collegeport schools. Eventually the school building was moved to Collegeport, where for a time it was the property of the Mopac House Foundation. By the early 1920s the E. W. Turner Irrigation Company had moved a number of rice farmers into the area and started the settlement of Turnerville outside Collegeport. Though DeMoss was not named on the 1936 county highway map, at that time a few widely scattered dwellings remained in the area. The community did not appear on later maps.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Matagorda County Historical Commission, Historic Matagorda County (3 vols., Houston: Armstrong, 1986).
