Shop MyTSHA Membership Renew Donate

Tarkington Prairie, TX

By: Mrs. Ben E. Pickett

Revised by: Laurie E. Jasinski

Type: General Entry

Published: 1976

Updated: September 22, 2016

Font size: A / A reset Translate / Traducir / Traduire

Tarkington Prairie was founded by Burton B. Tarkington in the mid-1820s near the old Nacogdoches-Lynchburg trail in northern Liberty County. The surrounding land was well suited for crop and cattle raising, and the group of settlers soon grew to become a thriving rural community. By the 1860s there was a store-trading center, a blacksmith shop, a steam mill and gin, a combination Baptist church-Masonic lodge, and a post office. Immediately after the Civil War many veterans settled in the community, and trail drivers and shippers of goods made Tarkington Prairie a stop along this major route to the coast. The post office was abandoned because of the proximity of the larger post office at Cleveland. A small part of the original cattle trail was covered by pavement at the point that State Highway 321 was built across it in the 1930s. In 1931 five area schools joined to establish the Tarkington Consolidated School District. A volunteer fire department was formed in Cleveland in 1974, and in 1976 the old trading center still stood. During the latter part of the twentieth century and in the early twenty-first century, Tarkington Prairie remained a largely rural and dispersed community and included residents that commuted to Houston. In 2009 the population was estimated at 300. The Tarkington Prairie Historical Society is located on FM 163 near one of the schools.

Cleveland Advocate, November 26, 1936. Historical Marker Files, Texas Historical Commission, Austin. Tarkington Independent School District (http://www.tarkingtonisd.net/page/65702_2), accessed June 4, 2015. Tarkington Volunteer Fire Department (http://www.tarkingtonvfd.com/), accessed June 4, 2015.

Places:

  • Communities

The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.

Mrs. Ben E. Pickett Revised by Laurie E. Jasinski, “Tarkington Prairie, TX,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed January 18, 2022, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/tarkington-prairie-tx.

Published by the Texas State Historical Association.

All copyrighted materials included within the Handbook of Texas Online are in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 related to Copyright and “Fair Use” for Non-Profit educational institutions, which permits the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA), to utilize copyrighted materials to further scholarship, education, and inform the public. The TSHA makes every effort to conform to the principles of fair use and to comply with copyright law.

For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Original Publication Date:
1976
Most Recent Revision Date:
September 22, 2016
handbook of texas logo
Become a TSHA member and get a FREE Texas Almanac!

Loading

tsha logo
legacy of texas logo
texas almanac logo