HICKORY GROVE, TEXAS (Delta County). Hickory Grove, on State Highway 154 and a dirt road three miles east of Cooper in central Delta County, is bordered on the west by a branch of Big Creek and on the east by Boyd Branch. The area was settled by 1875 when the Hickory Grove school opened; early teachers included J. N. Cornwall and "Dad Shannon." By 1931 local residents had established the Hickory Grove Baptist Church and sent a delegate to a meeting of the Delta County Baptist Association. The 1936 county highway map identified the settlement as a school and a cluster of dwellings. In 1949 the Hickory Grove school was consolidated with the Cooper school system. The church at Hickory Grove later closed, and a 1964 map showed only the Hickory Grove cemetery at the site. The community appeared on the 1984 county highway map.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Paul Garland Hervey, A History of Education in Delta County, Texas (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1951). Wilma Ross and Billie Phillips, Photos and Tales of Delta County (1976).

Vista K. McCroskey