SALEM, TEXAS (Wood County). Salem is just off Farm Road 17 near the Lake Fork Reservoir and two miles north of Alba in northwestern Wood County. The community had a log schoolhouse by 1889. R. T. Rucker was said to be the first teacher, and a local story has it that he signed the deed for the school land with his "mark." By 1896 the Salem school district had two teachers and more than sixty white students. During the 1930s the community had a church and, within half a mile, a school, which in 1932 reported seventy-three white students in nine grades. By 1958 the town consisted of the Salem church, a cemetery, and widely scattered dwellings. Salem was still shown on the 1988 county highway map.
