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ELIGA, TEXAS. Eliga formed in 1900 around a popular swimming hole located at the junction of House Creek and Cowhouse Creek, fourteen miles south of Gatesville in southern Coryell County. It was first called Elijah and became known as Eliga in 1903 when a post office was granted with Leonard M. Layne as postmaster. The nearest school was five miles west of town, but at one time Eliga had two cotton gins, two general stores, two church buildings for three congregations, and a blacksmith shop. After 1912 the community's mail was rerouted through Killeen, and in the early 1940s Eliga's population was twenty-five. Eliga was enveloped by the expansion of the Fort Hood^qv military reservation in 1942.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Coryell County Genealogical Society, Coryell County, Texas, Families, 1854-1985 (Dallas: Taylor, 1986).

Sylvia Edwards

The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this article.

Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "," http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/EE/hve18.html (accessed January 8, 2009).

(NOTE: "s.v." stands for sub verbo, "under the word.")

The Handbook of Texas Online is a project of the Texas State Historical Association (http://www.tshaonline.org).

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Last Updated: January 17, 2008
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