Brookeland

Brookeland is on U.S. Highway 96 thirteen miles south of Bronson in southwestern Sabine County. The town was named for John C. Brooke, who served as first postmaster when the community received a post office in 1866. The population of Brookeland was estimated at 300 in 1884, when it had a steam cotton gin, two general stores, and a lumber and grist mill powered by water from Mill Creek. By 1896 the community's population had fallen to an estimated 150 residents. In 1902 the Gulf, Beaumont and Great Northern Railway was constructed through the county and passed about a mile from Brookeland. A new town, to be named Weed after a railroad official, was laid out by the tracks. Although the Weed townsite was used, its name was not, and gradually the site on the tracks became known as Brookeland. In 1914 Brookeland's population was estimated at 800. By the 1920s businesses in the town included a bank, a hotel, and a Ford automobile agency. Brookeland was hard hit by the Great Depression. Its bank failed in 1933, and its population began to decline. By 1970 the population had fallen to an estimated 189, though in that decade the town began to grow again, largely because of its proximity to Sam Rayburn Reservoir, which attracted 2.6 million visitors in 1980. Although the Texas Almanac consistently reported Brookeland's population as 220 from 1974 through 1990, by the mid-1980s local sources indicated that the population of the community was growing. In 2000 the population was reported as 300.