BRISTOL, TEXAS. Bristol is on Farm Road 660 eighteen miles northeast of Waxahachie in northeastern Ellis County. Among the first settlers in the area in the early 1840s was Joshua W. Brock; from 1854 to 1869 a post office operated under the name of Brockville. Dancing was a popular diversion in the area's early social life, and for a time the community was unofficially called Heelstring. Community development revolved around a steam gristmill, a sawmill, and a cotton gin constructed by the Sparkman family in the late 1860s. The first community building, a log church, school, and lodge room, was constructed in 1870. The Bristol post office opened in 1872. By 1890 Bristol had 200 residents served by a half dozen businesses, a bank, two churches, and an elementary school. The population reached a high of 300 in 1933 but dropped to 200 by 1950 and below 200 in the mid-1960s. From 1972 through 2000 the community reported ninety-four residents. In the late 1980s Bristol continued to serve as a supply and service center for area farmers and as a school and church community.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Edna Davis Hawkins, et al., History of Ellis County, Texas (Waco: Texian, 1972).

David Minor