Hoxie

Hoxie is on Pecan Creek six miles northeast of Taylor in northeastern Williamson County. In 1878 John R. Hoxie, a railroad magnate, purchased 9,000 acres of ranchland in the area and built an estate called Hoxie House. He also established a settlement a short way south of the house on Pecan Creek. When the community received a post office in 1900, it also had a school, a gin, a general store, a blacksmith shop, a saddlery, and a population of 322. John Hoxie lived elsewhere most of the time, but his nephew, Mortimer Hoxie, a resident of nearby Taylor, developed the ranch, imported horses and new breeds of cattle, experimented with irrigation techniques, and lived the life of a gentleman rancher. The elaborate Hoxie House, completed in 1882, was the scene of various entertainments put on by the Hoxie family for Chicago guests, townspeople from around Williamson County, and local farmers and ranchers. The estate was sold and broken up into small farms after 1910, and Hoxie House burnt down in 1934. The community declined in the early twentieth century. The Hoxie post office was closed in 1905, and the school, a two-room building that served grades one through eight, closed around 1948. From 1943 to 2000 the population of Hoxie was reported as fifty.