Long Branch

Long Branch is a community on a country road between Farm Road 1027 and U.S. Highway 183 six miles southwest of Carbon in southwestern Eastland County. It is named for nearby Long Branch Creek. In 1880 R. B. Covington, an early settler at the site, donated land for a church, and the community had a two-room school building by the early 1880s. A cemetery was established in 1884. The Long Branch Baptist Church was organized in 1885, though members met in the school building until a church was built. By 1900 a large brush arbor had been built between the church and school buildings; it was a popular meeting spot for local farmers. In 1904 the Long Branch school district had four schools and served 270 pupils. In that same year the community Baptist church had 114 members. Long Branch enjoyed a brief boom in 1927, when the Lone Star Gas Company built a gas plant and six company houses in the community. Oil and gas fields were in operation all around the town, and Long Branch attracted two combination grocery stores and gas stations, a cafe, a welding shop, and a third grocery within a year. The oil boom only lasted a few years, and the Lone Star plant soon closed. The stores moved away as well by the mid-1930s. In 1938 the community had a school with twenty-five pupils, the Baptist church, and a number of dwellings. The school was consolidated with that of Carbon in the 1940s. In 1964 Long Branch reported a population of ten, and in 1969 the community had a church, a cemetery, and a number of scattered dwellings. Only the church and cemetery remained in 1989.