Gleam

Knobbs Springs, known at various times as The Knobbs, Knobbs, or Gleam, is a rural community just off Farm Road 696, twelve miles west of Lexington in far western Lee County. The area was named for Yegua Knobbs, three small hills nearby, and apparently was first settled around the time of the Civil War. A community of Wends settled there in the 1880s, and the town prospered briefly in the 1880s and early 1890s. A post office under the name Gleam was opened in 1889. By 1896 the town had three churches, two cotton mills, and an estimated population of 300. The Knobbs Springs Baptist Church was founded in 1860, and in 1911 a new church was built. The community also had a public school, which enrolled sixty-nine students in the 1905–06 school year. The post office closed in 1906, and the town began to decline. A new school building was erected in 1919. In the 1930s Knobbs Springs had the school, a church, a cemetery, and a few scattered dwellings. The school was consolidated with the Lexington Independent School District in 1950. During the 1980s the site was marked only by the church and cemetery and the former school, which was being used as a community center. In 2000 the population was twenty.