ESSEVILLE, TEXAS (Live Oak County). Esseville is on Farm Road 99 five miles northeast of Whitsett in northern Live Oak County. The area around Esseville was settled beginning around 1913, when ranchers in northern Live Oak County subdivided their large ranches into smaller sections for sale to farmers. In 1933 Willie Esse, Jr., built a store, a home, and a cotton gin in the area, and the site became known as Esseville. By 1936 the settlement included a dozen scattered residences, a business, and a school, which it shared with the nearby community of Nell and used for church services. By 1980 only the store was operating at the townsite. The community still existed in 1990.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ervin L. Sparkman, The People's History of Live Oak County (Mesquite, Texas, 1981).
