HASIMA, TEXAS. Hasima was on Linnville Bayou, which in that part of its course forms the border between Brazoria and Matagorda counties, and four miles west of Sweeny in southwestern Brazoria County. For a time Hasima was a stop on the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway, which built through the area around 1905. Reportedly Hasima's name was a conflation of the names of three of the townsite contractors' sons: Ha from Harry, Si from Simon, and Ma from Marion. Though the townsite's development plans were never fulfilled, a community eventually grew up along the route known locally as the Hasima road, and by 1908 the town had received a post office. Though one local source reports that Hasima had a population of around 200 in 1913, a second source notes that in 1914 Hasima reported a population of seventy-five, with six businesses, including the post office, two livestock breeders, a general store, and a company for real estate, loans, investments, and insurance. By 1917 school was being taught in a local resident's home, and the next year a one-room school was built for the community on land donated by McDonald and Company. Though in 1937 Hasima's one teacher still taught students in seven grades, by 1939 the school had closed; its few remaining students were transferred to the Bay City and Van Vleck schools. By the 1950s two dwellings remained at Hasima, which was by that time no longer even a railroad stop. Hasima is not shown on county highway maps in the 1980s.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Matagorda County Historical Commission, Historic Matagorda County (3 vols., Houston: Armstrong, 1986).

Rachel Jenkins