Cuba

Sand Flat is a rural community located on Farm Road 4 about six miles southeast of Cleburne in south central Johnson County. Settlers arrived in the area by the late 1850s, and the first pioneers included the Bennett, Walraven, and Boatwright families. On August 30, 1868, the New Hope Baptist Church of Christ was organized and Rev. J. R. Clarke served as pastor from 1869 to 1875. In 1874 the church name was changed to the Sand Flat Baptist Church of Christ. The earliest marked graves in the Sand Flat Cemetery date back to 1876. In 1882 the town received a post office under the name of Cuba, and in 1884 the Texas State Gazetteer listed Cuba with a population of fifty, supported by the church, a district school, gristmill, cotton gin, and several other businesses. By the mid-1890s the population had increased to seventy-five, and in 1898–99 the two-room school had thirty-two students. After the post office closed in 1904 the area was referred to as Sand Flat. County highway maps in the 1930s still showed the school as well as two businesses and scattered farms. In 1968 the church celebrated its 100th anniversary, and by the mid-1980s church membership consisted of about 300 people. No population figures were available in 2000.