Gossett

Gossett, on U.S. Highway 175 midway between Kemp and Mabank in southeastern Kaufman County, was established in the early 1900s and named for M. H. (Ham) Gossett, a popular legislator of the 1890s and a landowner in the area. At one time Gossett reportedly owned as much as 7,600 acres; in the 1980s much of his spread lay at the bottom of Cedar Creek Reservoir. The community was on the Texas and New Orleans Railroad. By 1914 it had a cotton gin, a gristmill, and two general stores. A post office operated there from 1913 to 1925, when the office closed and its mail was routed to Kemp. Several buildings still stood at the site in 1936, when Gossett's population was estimated at ninety. Estimates fell to thirty in the late 1940s, then remained at that level into the 1960s. In 1965 the nearby Cedar Creek Reservoir was completed. By the 1970s the former site of Gossett was the home of the Cedar Creek Country Club. In the mid-1980s county highway maps showed the Ham Gossett oilfield three miles east of the old townsite.

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.