KELM, TEXAS. Kelm, an early farming community three miles west of Emhouse in north central Navarro County, was first settled in 1854 by T. R. Kelm. A local school was constructed in the early 1890s, and in 1894 a post office opened. By 1896 the town had two churches, a grocery store, a cotton gin, a general store, and an estimated population of 400. The town continued to prosper until 1907, when the Trinity and Brazos Valley Railway bypassed it two miles to the east. Most of the businesses and residents moved to the newly established town of Emhouse on the railroad, and by 1910 Kelm was a ghost town.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Annie Carpenter Love, History of Navarro County (Dallas: Southwestern, 1933). Wyvonne Putman, comp., Navarro County History (5 vols., Quanah, Texas: Nortex, 1975-84). Alva Taylor, History and Photographs of Corsicana and Navarro County (Corsicana, Texas, 1959; rev. ed., Navarro County History and Photographs, Corsicana, 1962).
