Bazette

Bazette, on Farm Road 636 near the Trinity River in northeast Navarro County, was established around 1845 on the river, but the settlers had to move to higher ground because of floods. A Baptist preacher named Bazette operated a ferry on the Trinity River. Some of the early settlers were the Barnetts, the Ellisons, John Street, and a Baptist parson named Rickman. The post office was established in 1847 by a man named Ellison but was closed in 1851; it was reopened in 1874 and moved in 1906. Bazette had a population of 300 in 1884 and 250 in 1890. Its largest population, 400, was recorded in 1896, when the town had three general stores, a gristmill, three churches, and a school. In 1904 the population was 100. In 1906 Bazette had one school with eighty-seven students. The town's population was listed as 250 from 1933 until 1944, when it was recorded as 150. In 1949 only twenty residents remained, but the community reported a population of thirty in 1964, 1990, and 2000.

Bazette was a religious center for Navarro County in the mid-1800s. People from many miles away traveled to congregate in a grove of oak trees and hear sermons of local ministers. A regularly convened camp meeting developed. Most of Bazette's early pioneers are buried near the oak grove in Prairie Point Cemetery. In the 1930s the town had two schools, two churches, and a number of scattered dwellings, as well as a row of homes and businesses. Highway maps of the 1980s showed Bazette as a community with a cemetery and a church. The town still held a yearly picnic and revival meeting at Prairie Point Cemetery.