HOARD, TEXAS. Hoard, also known as Democrat, is at the intersection of Farm Road 1801 and U.S. Highway 80-which parallels the Missouri Pacific line-six miles east of Mineola in southern Wood County. Sometime before 1870 a one-room box building known as the Democrat school reportedly existed in what was to become the Hoard community. The community was probably named after the owner of nearby Hoard's Mill. After the railway came through in 1873, this mill was operating near the line, but it apparently went out of business before Hoard was able to convince the railway to build a switch past it. By around 1910 the community had a rural commissary and a population of 150. The Democrat school reported 112 students by 1932, and in the mid-1930s the community had a number of dwellings, a church, and three businesses, including a factory and a sawmill. Hoard's population was reported as twenty-five by 1945, but by 1949 no further population figures were available. By 1960 nearby U.S. Highway 80 had grown to four lanes, and only a few scattered dwellings remained at Hoard. During the 1980s the community had a number of new dwellings and three businesses. Its population was forty-five in 2000.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Wood County, 1850–1900 (Quitman, Texas: Wood County Historical Society, 1976).
