Lost Prairie

Personville is on State highways 164 and 39, twelve miles southeast of Groesbeck in southeastern Limestone County. It was founded in 1854 by B. D. Person, a native of North Carolina, who moved in 1851 from Shelby County, Tennessee, to Shelby County, Texas. In 1854 he moved to the site of what is now Personville in Limestone County. Around that time the site had several families, a blacksmith shop, and a dramshop. The Personville post office was established in 1855 with William Person as postmaster, and the town had an estimated population of thirty. There was some debate in early years over the name of the town; some wanted to call it Lost Prairie. By 1857 it had six or eight residences, three dry-goods stores, two grocery stores, a blacksmith shop, a bowling alley, and a cotton gin. In 1882 John Frank Boyd taught school and established the Boyd Drug and General Merchandise Company. He was also the unofficial undertaker. R. P. Merrill opened a dry-goods store in the early 1880s and was reported to have an extremely large stock for that time. In 1906 the Houston and Texas Central Railway built the Nelleva cutoff, and Personville became a stop on the route. The cutoff was not profitable, however, and so was abandoned in 1933. State Highway 39 was later built on the cutoff. By 1914 the town had a population estimated at 200 and eight businesses. By 1967, however, it had only one business. Its population also dropped sharply, from 300 in 1929 to twenty by 1967. The population probably declined because of changes in local agriculture and the aftereffects of World War II. In 1990 Personville had a Baptist church, a cemetery, and a school. In 2000 the population was fifty.

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.