Looneyville

Looneyville, a farming community near the junction of Farm roads 225 and 343 sixteen miles northwest of Nacogdoches in northwestern Nacogdoches County, was first settled around the time of the Civil War. The community was named for John Looney, who opened a store there in the early 1870s. A post office was established in Looney's store in 1874. The post office was closed in 1878 but reopened in 1889 and operated until 1905. Early on the Looneyville economy was based on lumbering, and a number of sawmills operated there at the end of the 1800s. At its height in the 1890s Looneyville had a population of 100 and a gin, a store, several sawmills, and a commissary operated by one of the lumber companies. A school was in operation by 1900; in 1904 it had an enrollment of thirty-two. The population declined after World War I, but during the 1930s Looneyville still had a church, a school, two stores, and an estimated population of forty. The school later closed; during the early 1960s the community consisted of a church and a store. In the early 1990s Looneyville was a dispersed rural community.