Ash Switch, TX

Ash Switch, also known as Ash, is on Farm Road 1616 four miles northeast of Athens in north central Henderson County. The settlement was named for John Ash, who built a home there in the 1890s. Before 1900 the St. Louis and Southwestern Railway established a flag station nearby named Ash Switch, which locals eventually shortened to Ash. In the mid-1930s the community had a population of five, one business, a church, and a number of houses. After World War II residents left the area, and by the early 1990s only a cemetery and a few scattered dwellings remained.