AVANT PRAIRIE, TEXAS.Avant Prairie is off State Highway 179 four miles southeast of Teague in southwestern Freestone County. By 1848 a few settlers, including Charles Kilgore, had moved to the area. In 1852 more families from Alabama, including the Comptons, Highs, and Blains, settled there. The community was first called Durham; later the name was changed to Avant or Avant Prairie. It was probably named after Durham Avant, who owned the grant for the land in the area. A post office was established for the community in January 1853, with James W. Brewer as postmaster, but it closed by November of that year. The Sunshine Church was organized in 1854, and a general store was established by D. K. Compton in 1870. The post office was reestablished in 1884 but closed again in 1885, when mail was sent to Luna. In 1903 Avant Prairie's white school had an enrollment of eight pupils, and the black school had fifty-seven. In the 1930s the community had a school, two churches, two cemeteries, and a large number of scattered dwellings. By 1965 it had a church, a school, a cemetery, and three dwellings. In the late 1980s the church and cemetery remained at the site.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Phillip Dale Browne, The Early History of Freestone County to 1865 (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1925). Freestone County Historical Commission, History of Freestone County, Texas (Fairfield, Texas, 1978).

Chris Cravens