Jones Prairie, TX

Jones Prairie is on Farm Road 979 ten miles northeast of Cameron in northern Milam County. It was established in 1853 and named for Joseph Patterson Jones, who received a land grant in the area in 1834. The Little River Baptist Church began meeting near the Jones Prairie site in 1849, and a Masonic lodge was organized there in 1849 or 1850. A post office was established at Jones Prairie in 1876. Area farmers shipped cotton and corn. By 1884 the community had a gristmill, a cotton gin, a district school, three churches, and 150 residents. Jones Prairie was on the stage line between Calvert and Cameron but was bypassed when the railroads were built through Milam County in the 1880s and 1890s. A population of 100 was reported at Jones Prairie from the mid-1920s to the mid-1960s. The post office was discontinued in the 1950s. Jones Prairie had thirty-five residents in 1990. The population remained the same in 2000.