Lodi

Lodi is at the intersection of Farm roads 2683 and 248, on the Missouri Pacific line nine miles northeast of Jefferson in northeastern Marion County. The Texas and Pacific Railway was built through the area in the mid-1870s, and the community probably developed around a railway station. The post office, which opened in 1876, was named by J. Lopresto, an early settler, for his former home in Lodi, Italy. By 1884 Lodi was a timber processing community, with two steam sawmills, three general stores, and an estimated population of seventy-five. Its population grew to eighty by 1890, and the Lodi school had sixteen pupils in 1899. The community population grew to 133 in 1904 and an estimated 175 in 1925, then fell to an estimated 150 in the 1930s and stayed at that level through the 1950s. In 1938 the Lodi school had an enrollment of fourteen elementary-level students. The school was consolidated with those of Jefferson by 1955, and by the early 1960s Lodi had an estimated 100 inhabitants and four rated businesses. Its population was reported as 164 from 1968 through 2000.