SIMMONS, TEXAS (Delta County). Simmons, also known as Rocky Point and as Jackson's Chapel, was a mile east of Ben Franklin and south of the North Sulphur River on a dirt road just off Farm Road 128 in northwestern Delta County. The area was settled in the early 1840s, and the Simmons School soon became the center of local activities. Early teachers included D. R. Black and a Professor Hall. In 1886 the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway built track through the area just north of Ben Franklin, which became a stop on the line. The Simmons school had thirty-three students and one teacher in 1905. Simmons was not labeled on the 1936 county highway map, but the school, a cemetery, and a cluster of dwellings remained in the vicinity. A 1964 map identified the Simmons cemetery. By 1970 local children attended classes within the Cooper Independent School District. The cemetery was still designated on a 1984 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