Jozye

Jozye is on State Highway 90 at Farm Road 1452, three miles south of Madisonville in southern Madison County. The first settler in the vicinity was Joe Shannon, who built a house south of Caney Creek in 1887 and began raising cotton and cattle. In 1900 a group of Mormons moved into the area and constructed a small frame chapel on land donated by Shannon. The congregation was initially called Shannon and then Utah or Little Utah, but, like the town itself, it soon came to be known as Jozye in honor of Joe Shannon. In 1903 the International and Great Northern Railroad extended its Navasota-Madisonville branch line through the vicinity, and the community moved to the present townsite just east of the railroad grade. A post office, officially designated Jozye, was established in 1912. By 1914 the town had telephone service, two stores, and an estimated population of twenty-five. Many area children attended Center School, founded a mile northwest of the township in the early 1900s. U.S. Highway 90 was constructed through the town about 1930. Jozye began to decline when the International and Great Northern abandoned its Navasota-Madisonville line in 1943; that year the community's post office was closed. In 1949 the community's population stood at an estimated twenty-five. The local Mormon congregation in 1957 dispersed to Bryan and Huntsville, and the Jozye Chapel was torn down. By 1990 the community had been reduced to a single business, a handful of dwellings, and the Jozye Cemetery.

Adapted from the official Handbook of Texas, a state encyclopedia developed by the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). It is an authoritative source of trusted historical records.