GALENA, TEXAS. Galena is on Farm Road 1995 seven miles west of Mount Sylvan in extreme western Smith County. The settlement was granted a post office in 1892, with Andrew J. Green as first postmaster; the post office was moved to Garden Valley in 1899. By 1936 the Elm Grove elementary school had opened at Galena, and three teachers taught 116 white students, while thirty-two black children were not enrolled. At that time there were also ten farms, a factory, and one additional business in the area along the highway and a graded and drained metal-surfaced road. By 1952 Galena's school had been consolidated into the Lindale Independent School District. Maps show a cemetery in Galena in 1965, and the area was sparsely inhabited in 1973. Galena was still shown on the 1981 county highway map.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: "Post Offices and Postmasters of Smith County, Texas: 1847-1929," Chronicles of Smith County, Spring 1966. "School Sights," Chronicles of Smith County, Fall 1969. Smith County Historical Society, Historical Atlas of Smith County (Tyler, Texas: Tyler Print Shop, 1965). Donald W. Whisenhunt, comp., Chronological History of Smith County (Tyler, Texas: Smith County Historical Society, 1983).

Vista K. McCroskey