ROCK HILL, TX (WOOD COUNTY)

ROCK HILL, TEXAS (Wood County). Rock Hill is near Farm Road 2966 seven miles north of Quitman in northwestern Wood County. Another Rock Hill is shown on the 1988 county highway map two miles farther north near the intersection of Farm roads 2966 and 515 (the latter road is known locally as the Coke road). The community was apparently originally located at the more northern site and was reportedly named for a local geological formation. The area was settled as early as 1850, when Andrew Gilbreath moved there. By 1870 a school existed at the Rock Hill on Coke road; that same year a Baptist church was organized at the school. In 1884 a Rock Hill public school district was established, and in 1892 a Baptist church was constructed; that year the church had four members, but beginning around 1900 its average annual membership was 170. By 1905 the Rock Hill school had seventy-three white and fifty-seven black students. The 1936 county highway map showed the second, more southern, Rock Hill community. At that time the community reported a population of ten and had two businesses and a number of dwellings. By 1945 the population had risen to twenty; it continued to be reported at that level into the late 1980s. Sometime after 1959 nearby Lake Fork Creek was dammed to form Lake Fork Reservoir, the eastern bank of which comes within 2½ miles of the southern Rock Hill. In 1960 this Rock Hill consisted of a church and a few widely scattered dwellings, while the earlier site on Farm Road 515 retained a church and cemetery. Both churches were shown on the 1988 county highway map. A Texas Historical Commission marker is located at the northern site. The population of Rock Hill was reported as twenty-one in 1990.