Hemming

Hemming, 15½ miles south of Gainesville in extreme southern Cooke County, was established in 1889. It was named for Gainesville banker C. C. Hemming, who in 1890 donated land for a school there. A store and cotton gin were built at Hemming in 1894, and that year a post office opened in the store, with W. J. Pipkin as first postmaster. The Hemming post office closed in 1905, and rural free delivery came from Pilot Point. In 1900 B. R. Newton opened a general store at the community, and in 1905 Emberson and Alexander opened another. At its height just after 1900, Hemming had two general stores, a school, a cotton gin, a blacksmith shop, three churches, and a population of 125. In 1912 a Woodmen of the World camp was organized there and a second floor was added to the school building for a lodge hall. The town served as the region's cotton-processing center, and during the peak years of the cotton boom after 1900 the Hemming cotton gin handled 1,000 to 1,500 bales annually. The town's prosperity, however, was short-lived. A tornado hit the community on April 27, 1907, killing seven people and wiping out all but one of the town's buildings. Though several of its buildings were rebuilt, by the early 1920s Hemming was in decline. Its cotton gin closed in 1922. In 1929 the Hemming school was consolidated with the Mount Olive, Oak Hill, Bloomfield, and Walling schools to form the Union Grove school district. The Hemming schoolhouse was dismantled, and the materials were used in the new Union Grove building. Hemming's Methodist church members became affiliated with the Valley View congregation in 1934, and by 1936 Hemming comprised a church and a few scattered dwellings. In 1947 the community reported a population of around ten. By the late 1980s the town was no longer shown on county highway maps.