Lanham

Lanham, a ghost town in eastern Hamilton County, was settled in the late 1870s and had a population of thirty-five in 1890. Several stores were operated during the town's lifetime, including those of Louis Lanham (1890), S. J. Jenkins (1892), and William B. Seymour (1896). The town had a post office from 1884 until 1907. The population was 128 in 1910, when Lanham had a gin, a school, two churches, and three businesses. In 1947 the thirty residents supported a school, a church, and one business. Lanham gradually disappeared from maps following the construction of Highway 22 during the 1950s. There are few references to the town in the subsequent decades, and most of the residents moved away. In 1988, resident Jerry Jones erected a 24-foot-tall steel pole with an 8-foot sign that read, "Welcome to Lanham, Tex." Jones' display also included three large steel sculptures of an elephant, giraffe, and a palm tree that he named "Lanham's Steel Zoo." He planned to add up to twenty additional animals, as well as native Texas flowers and a huge mud-buggy sculpture. The Lanham Methodist Church and cemetery remain at the corner of Highway 22 and FM 1602.