UNDERWOOD, TEXAS. Underwood, also known as Honest, was a farming community on the East Fork of Jernigan Creek five miles south of Pecan Gap and just east of Jot 'Em Down in western Delta County. The area was settled by 1900, when the Honest post office was established there. The name came from local resident Saint Thompson, who took it from a tin of Honest Snuff. The Honest community failed to prosper, and in 1905 its post office was closed. By 1915 the property had become part of the Underwood Farm, a large tenant-farming operation (see FARM TENANCY). That year the Underwood School, one of the last organized in the county, was established for the tenants' children. The community was not shown on the 1936 county highway map, and the school was consolidated into the Pecan Gap district in 1949.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: John J. Germann and Myron Janzen, Texas Post Offices by County (1986). Paul Garland Hervey, A History of Education in Delta County, Texas (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1951). Wilma Ross and Billie Phillips, Photos and Tales of Delta County (1976).

Vista K. McCroskey