GENEVA, TEXAS (Polk County). Geneva was on the Trinity River in San Jacinto and Polk counties north of Swartwout. The area was first settled by Massena Rankin Brown during the 1830s. By 1839 F. W. Johnson was serving as the Geneva postmaster. The community developed around a steamboat landing on the west side of the Trinity River and by 1845 consisted of twelve dwellings. Although early settlement had been on what would eventually become the San Jacinto County side of the river, a post office named Geneva operated in Polk County from 1879 to 1882. Geneva was later abandoned, and by the 1980s the area was part of Lake Livingston.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Miriam Partlow, Liberty, Liberty County, and the Atascosito District (Austin: Pemberton, 1974). A Pictorial History of Polk County, Texas, 1846-1910 (Livingston, Texas: Polk County Bicentennial Commission, 1976; rev. ed. 1978).

Robert Wooster