Hammel's Branch

Hammel's (Hammel, Himmel) Branch was on what is now Farm Road 1243, twelve miles northeast of Hillsboro in eastern Hill County. In 1883 the Himmel Branch School was built and named in honor of the first teacher, Emma B. Himmel, a member of a family that settled in the area in 1876. Hammel's Branch developed after the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas line extended tracks through a site about 1½ miles south of the town between 1893 and 1894. Possibly through a spelling error, the federal government named the community Hammel's Branch when it established a post office there in 1903. Although the community's post office closed after 1907, three general stores, a cotton gin, a grain and coal warehouse, a blacksmith shop, and a barbershop opened there before 1920. Also prior to 1920, Hammel's Branch had a railroad depot, pump house, and public scales for weighing livestock for shipping. Although the community did not have a church building, a local resident organized a Sunday school and served as superintendent for a number of years. After the depot closed in 1919, trains only stopped at Hammel's Branch when signaled or flagged. The community's school was consolidated with that of nearby Midway in 1925. Other local businesses closed, and by 1990 a few scattered dwellings and the ruins of other buildings were the only evidence of a once active town. The community is not shown on the 1984 county highway map. The Texas Historical Commission placed a historic marker at the site of Hammel's Branch in 1985.