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SPARKS, TEXAS. Sparks is on Farm Road 95 and the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad, eleven miles southeast of Belton in southeastern Bell County. It grew up around the railroad station in the late nineteenth century and was probably named for the Sparks family, the original owners of the site. Sparks had a post office from 1897 to 1906. The rural district school in Sparks had fifty-two pupils and one teacher in 1903. In 1933 the community had sixty-one inhabitants and one business. By 1964 it had declined to a population of thirty, and a church was located a short distance to the east of the railway station. Through 2000 the population was still thirty.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: George Tyler, History of Bell County (San Antonio: Naylor, 1936).

Mark Odintz

The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this article.

Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "," http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/SS/hns66.html (accessed May 14, 2008).

(NOTE: "s.v." stands for sub verbo, "under the word.")

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Last Updated: January 18, 2008
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