Buckhorn

Buckhorn is on Farm Road 1456 seven miles northeast of Bellville in far northeastern Austin County. Settlement in the vicinity began during the 1830s. Buckhorn was founded in 1873 when H. S. Smith constructed a cotton gin and gristmill on the banks of a small tributary of Caney Creek. A post office was established there in 1874, with N. Cochran as the first postmaster. By 1880 the town had a school, several churches, and a semiweekly stage to Bellville. Buckhorn reported a population of 200 in 1885. In 1901 its post office was discontinued. The Buckhorn school enrolled twenty-one pupils in 1918. The community's population dropped below 100 by 1910 and had dwindled to an estimated ten by 1933. In 1939 the town had two businesses and an estimated population of fifty. From 1974 to 1990 its population was estimated at twenty. The population remained the same in 2000. Samuel Chapel and Washam Chapel were at the site in the late 1980s.