Henry County Settlement

Providence is at the junction of State Highway 146 and Farm Road 1988, four miles southeast of Livingston and seventy miles north of Houston in southwestern Polk County. Early residents included Isham, Riley, and Wiley Peebles. The community was originally known as the Henry County settlement, since many of the earliest settlers had come from Henry County, Alabama. By 1858 a Baptist church was organized, as was the Providence school. Providence became a rural community in which most residents were employed in cotton or truck farming. The West Lumber Company also established a lumber camp at Providence about 1920. In the mid-1980s a number of persons remained at Providence, some of whom commuted to Livingston. In 2000 the population was 350.