LANNIUS, TEXAS. Lannius is on Farm Road 897 ten miles northeast of Bonham in central Fannin County. Settlers, led by William Onstott, Richard Overton, Ira Isham, and W. W. Bowman, moved into the area as early as 1836. By the 1880s the settlement, called Stephensville, had a school, a saloon, and a blacksmith shop. In 1891 the community received a post office and changed its name to Lannius because Texas already had a post office named Stephensville; the post office operated until 1907. The new name came from William Lannius, a landowner and businessman who inherited the land around the community. By 1900 the community's population reached 119; it was reported at that level through the 1930s. In 1949 Lannius had fifty residents and two businesses. Its population was estimated as seventy in 1967 and as seventy-nine in 1990 and 2000.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Fannin County Folks and Facts (Dallas: Taylor, 1977). Floy Crandall Hodge, A History of Fannin County (Hereford, Texas: Pioneer, 1966).

Brian Hart