LATCH, TEXAS. Latch, on Farm Road 1795 eight miles west of Gilmer in western Upshur County, was established in the late 1880s and originally named Know. The name was changed to Latch when a post office opened in 1894, after L. A. Latch, who moved to the area in the early 1890s, bought a large parcel of timberland, and built a sawmill. By 1896 Latch had Methodist, Baptist, and Christian churches and a general store. A Latch school was in operation by 1906, when it had an enrollment of 118. In 1906 the post office was closed. After L. A. Latch had cut most of the timber, he closed the sawmill and built a cotton gin; a second gin built by Will Mathis also operated for a time. In the mid-1930s the town had a church, several stores, a school, and a number of houses. The estimated population in 1936 was fifty. After World War II the school was consolidated with the Harmony School District, and by the mid-1960s all that remained of Latch was a church, a store, and a few widely scattered houses. In 1990 Latch was a dispersed community with an estimated population of fifty. The population remained the same in 2000.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: G. H. Baird, A Brief History of Upshur County (Gilmer, Texas: Gilmer Mirror, 1946 Doyal T. Loyd, History of Upshur County (Waco: Texian Press, 1987).
