Black Jack

Black Jack, on Farm Road 2750 eighteen miles northeast of Rusk in northeastern Cherokee County, was first settled in the 1840s by Robert Graves Stadler, a native of South Carolina and veteran of the Texas Revolution. He was joined by a number of relatives, mostly nephews and nieces, who built a small settlement that they named after the numerous blackjack trees in the vicinity. A log schoolhouse was constructed around the time of the Civil War, and in 1875 the Blackjack Baptist Church was organized. However, the town did not grow until around 1916, when John W. Gray and Tom Upchurch opened a store. At its height just after World War I the small community had two stores, a cotton gin, a garage, a church, a school, and a population of 100. After World War II the school was consolidated with the Troup school. The last store closed in 1961, but as late as 1966 the reported population was still seventy-five. In 1990 Black Jack was a dispersed rural community with a church, a few scattered houses, and a population of forty-seven. The population remained the same in 2000.