SEBESTA, TEXAS. In the mid-1880s Czech families settled in the southeastern part of Burleson County in a small pocket of Blackland Prairie soil located in a larger area generally known as Mound Prairie; there they formed an all-Czech community. They organized a cooperative store and built a structure for it in the latter 1880s. A candy store, a saloon, a school, and a Czechoslovak Benevolent Society lodge hall were built near the cooperative store. A Czech Moravian Brethren church also was built in 1913.
The Frank Sebesta family moved to this area in 1890 and settled at the intersection of two roads. The Czechs referred to the spot as Sebesta's Corner, a name later shortened to Sebesta. As the area population grew during the early 1890s a saloon, two general merchandise stores, and a cotton gin were constructed a mile and a half northeast of Sebesta. This was a more central location for a majority of the Czechs living in the area. The new business section grew while the businesses in Sebesta declined. In 1895 a post office was established where the newer businesses were located, and it was named Snook. Although a post office was established at Sebesta in 1896, commercial interests continued to shift to Snook. The Sebesta post office closed in 1912, and Sebesta was encompassed in the larger Snook community.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Burleson County Historical Society, Astride the Old San Antonio Road: A History of Burleson County, Texas (Dallas: Taylor, 1980). Clinton Machann and James W. Mendl, Krásná Amerika: A Study of the Texas Czechs, 1851–1939 (Austin: Eakin Press, 1983). Robert L. Skrabanek, Social Organization and Change in a Czech-American Rural Community: A Sociological Study of Snook, Texas (Ph.D. dissertation, Louisiana State University, 1949).
