SATIN, TEXAS. Satin is on Farm Road 434 four miles from Chilton in northern Falls County. In 1834 Fielden Ruble settled in the locality at the Rocky Dam crossing on the Brazos River. The town was established in 1872 when J. H. Robertson built a sawmill on Cow Bayou near the present townsite. The population shifted to the present location when the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway was built between 1889 and 1892. The town was previously called Laguna after a large lake nearby and after that was known as Cedar Point for the native cedar shipped out around 1900. Satin, reportedly the name of a railroad employee, had become the town's official designation by the time a post office was established in 1917. After the local cedar was cut, the area became prosperous cotton land. At one time Satin had a cotton gin, a railroad depot, a boarding house, a barbershop, two general mercantile stores, two schools, and four churches. In 1986 only the post office and the churches were open. The population was estimated at ten in 1926. It grew to 100 by 1927 and 200 by 1931 but dropped back to ten in 1935. By the late 1930s it had climbed to 125. From 1958 to 1990 it was estimated at 138. In 2000 the population dropped to eighty-six.

Jean Warner Epperson