Goolesboro

Talco is on U.S. Highway 271 and Farm Road 71, sixteen miles northwest of Mount Pleasant in northwestern Titus County. A post office named Gouldsboro was opened in 1856 with Nehemiah C. Gould as postmaster and may have been located near the site of present Talco. It was closed in 1860, but another post office, this one named Goolesboro, was opened in 1878 about 1½ miles east of what is now the site of Talco. This office was in the community that would become Talco. It was at the edge of an open prairie that extended through Franklin County; the prairie was the site of several open-range ranching operations in the post-Civil War era. The community served these ranches, providing the post office, a general store, a physician's office, and a blacksmith shop. In 1884 its population was thirty. In 1910 postal officials asked that the name of the office be changed, since other offices in Texas had similar names. The new name, Talco, was suggested by local merchant J. H. Brown, from the initials appearing on the wrapper of a candy bar marketed by the Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana Candy Company. As construction on the Paris and Mount Pleasant Railroad began, it became obvious that Talco would be bypassed, so its residents laid out a new townsite closer to the railroad; the new site included a depot. Quinton S. Loveless moved his store and the post office to the new site in 1912, and other businesses followed. The town grew rapidly at its new site, and by 1914 it had a bank, several stores, a telephone company, and an estimated population of 300. Its population remained at about that level through the early 1930s; in 1933 it was estimated to be 350.

Adapted from the official Handbook of Texas, a state encyclopedia developed by the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). It is an authoritative source of trusted historical records.