Halesboro

Halesboro, also once known as Halesborough, is on the Josiah Hale land grant off Ranch Road 410 five miles west of Bogata in southwestern Red River County. John E. Hughes opened a general store there shortly before the Civil War. Although the community name was generally spelled Halesboro, its post office was designated Halesborough from its opening in 1872 until 1892, when the spelling was changed. The community's population was reported as only twenty in 1880 and 1884, but a description of the town in 1881 stated that it had a drugstore, three general stores, a blacksmith shop, and a "large and flourishing school." Around 1900 Halesboro had a population of 159. During the early 1900s it began to decline, and in 1907 the post office closed. By 1933 the population had fallen to ten, but in the late 1930s it rose to forty, and in the mid-1940s it was sixty, where it remained until 1948, the last year for which population figures were available. In 1984 Halesboro consisted of a church, a cemetery, and a few scattered houses.