Ragley, TX (Panola County)

Ragley, eighteen miles southwest of Carthage in southwestern Panola County, was established in 1903 as a sawmill station on the Timpson and Henderson Railway, a logging line built for the Ragley lumber interests. The community was named for Frank Ragley, part-owner of the lumber company. A post office opened there in 1903, and by 1914 the community had two general stores, a blacksmith shop, a sawmill, a druggist, a school, and a number of houses; the estimated population in 1915 was 150. Ragley began to decline in the early 1920s, when the timber was depleted. Its post office closed in 1922, and the next year the railroad was abandoned. Most of the residents moved to nearby Timpson, and within a short time Ragley was abandoned.