UNION, TEXAS (Hopkins County). Union, also known as Yesner, is on County Road 2444 east of State Highway 154 and six miles south of Sulphur Springs in southern Hopkins County. A log church with split-log benches was built there in 1850 and used by several denominations. The town had a post office called Yesner from 1901 to 1906; at one time it also had a church, a school, a general store, a gristmill, and a cemetery. The oldest marked grave (1875) is that of Thomas Jeffgamblin. In 1885 the church was named the Union Baptist Church; at that time its membership numbered 100. Thereafter the community was known as Union. A school operated there from the late 1800s until 1946, when it was consolidated with the Sulphur Springs school district. Local crop farming later gave way to dairying, beef cattle, and hay production. The population of Union was reported as 200 in the 1980s. In 1985 a Texas Historical Commission^qv marker was placed just outside the gates of the Union cemetery.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Sylvia M. Kibart and Rita M. Adams, eds., Pioneers of Hopkins County, Texas, Vol. 1 (Wolfe City, Texas: Henington, 1986).

Sheila Funderburk