Essex

Rosewood is on State Highway 154 eight miles west of Gilmer in western Upshur County. It was probably first settled in the late 1880s or early 1890s and was originally known as Double Springs. Its name was changed to Essex in 1891 when a post office was opened. In 1902 the name was changed again, to Rosewood. When the Marshall and East Texas Railway was built through the area around 1909, Rosewood became a station. In the years just before World War I the town was an important shipping point and commercial center for farmers and ranchers in western Upshur County. By 1914 Rosewood had Baptist and Methodist churches, two sawmills, four general stores, a bank, and an estimated population of 500. After the railroad went out of business in the early 1920s, the town declined. By 1925 its population had fallen to 255, and in the mid-1930s it consisted of a school, several stores, one sawmill, and two churches. After World War II its school was consolidated with the Harmony school district, and by the mid-1960s all that remained of the town was two churches, a cemetery, and a few widely scattered houses. In 1990 Rosewood was a dispersed rural community with an estimated population of 100.