Bear Grass

Bear Grass is near the intersection of Farm roads 1512 and 1146, eight miles northwest of Jewett in the northwest corner of Leon County. The site was settled in the 1850s. The Bear Grass post office was established in Limestone County in 1858 and closed in 1867. On the other side of the county line, in Leon County, Little Flock Cemetery was established about 1860. The center of the community shifted to the south over the years, placing it in Leon County. Little Flock Baptist Church, sometimes called Old Bear Grass Church, was built by 1900, and the Little Flock school met in the church building. In 1906 the Bear Grass Coal Company developed coal mines in the community and built a company store, the Bear Grass Mercantile Company, and a new school building, which had one teacher and thirty-four pupils in 1907. The school later burned. When a new church was built in 1918, it also served as the new schoolhouse. The supply of soft coal was exhausted by 1930, and by 1930 the community had twenty-five inhabitants and two stores. In 1939 the Little Flock school was consolidated with the Jewett school, and in 1940 Bear Grass had two stores, a church, and a number of scattered dwellings. In the late 1940s the population of the town was estimated at fifty. Bear Grass was still indicated on state highway maps in 1990.