OLD DIANA, TEXAS. Old Diana, near the junction of Farm Road 726 and U.S. Highway 259, twelve miles east of Gilmer in eastern Upshur County, was first settled in the early 1850s. A Diana post office began operating in 1882, and by 1885 the community had two stream gristmills and cotton gins, two churches, a school, a general store, and an estimated population of fifty. During the 1890s Diana, with a population of nearly 150, was one of the largest towns in eastern Upshur County. After 1900, however, the town began to decline, and in 1909 the post office was closed. When oil was discovered in the 1930s three miles south, most of the residents moved to a site just west of the oilfield and established the town of New Diana. In the mid-1930s Old Diana still had a sawmill, a church, a store, two cemeteries, and a number of houses; but by the mid-1960s only a few houses remained. In 1990 Old Diana was a dispersed rural community with a few scattered residences; Jones Cemetery and Walnut Creek Church were nearby.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Doyal T. Loyd, A History of Upshur County (Gilmer, Texas: Gilmer Mirror, 1966).

Christopher Long