Eola

Eola is at the junction of Farm roads 381 and 765, on Dry Hollow some thirteen miles southwest of Paint Rock in northwestern Concho County. The community has had a post office since 1901, when it was known as Jordan. In 1902 the name was changed to Eola, reportedly after a small local creek named for Aeolus, Greek god of the winds. In the middle to late 1890s public school lands in the county were put up for sale at fifty cents an acre. Spurred on by railroad promotion, a land boom resulted in the area of Lipan Flat, a section that stretched east from San Angelo to the Colorado River. Eola was one of the communities created during this boom, which included many immigrants from central and eastern Europe. In 1920 more than 100 people in the vicinity of Eola were reported to be of Czech descent. The first family to settle in the area was that of Asher L. and Lizzie Leona (Hollman) Lollar, who established themselves at a site 3½ miles southeast of Eola in 1898. By 1902, when the first local store was built, the community numbered four families. Within the next two years a Baptist church was erected. The first school was conducted in a church on the Will Stephenson ranch. A two-story, two-room schoolhouse was built in 1906. In 1908 the community had a windmill and an Odd Fellows lodge. By 1914 Eola had a drugstore, a general store, and a population of twenty-five. Its population rose from thirty-five in 1925 to 240 by 1931. In 1940 the community had a population of 250, five churches, three general stores, three filling stations, two gins, a drugstore, a barbershop, a beauty shop, a laundry, a shoe shop, and a wholesale oil concern. A nine-teacher school taught elementary and high school classes. By 1955, after consolidation, the Eola school district was one of four remaining in Concho County. In 1963 Eola had the school, one industrial concern, five other businesses, and five churches. The community's population reached a reported high of 350 in 1947; from 1974 to 2000 it was recorded as 218.