Cold Springs

Cold Springs, fourteen miles south of Rusk on Farm Road 220 in southern Cherokee County, was first settled after the Civil War. In 1876 William Louis Byrd, a local farmer, deeded four acres for a church and school. A Methodist church was organized around the same time, and a school was in operation by 1884. During the 1930s the small community had a four-teacher school, a church, and a number of scattered houses. The school was consolidated with that of Alto in 1944. After World War II many of the residents moved away, and in the early 1990s only the church and a few houses remained in the area.