Neyland

Neyland was ten miles east of Greenville in eastern Hunt County. It was developed sometime in the middle to late 1880s and named for Robert Neyland, a planter who settled in the area in the mid-1840s. Some think that the settlement was a response to the foundation of the black community of Neylandville, located a mile or two east of Neyland. In 1888 the tracks of the St. Louis and Southwestern Railway reached both communities, and Neyland, located in a prosperous fruit-growing area, became a shipping point for area farmers. In 1892 a Neyland post office opened. By 1904 the town had 107 residents. That figure, however, was never surpassed. The introduction of paved roads, the automobile, and the growth of nearby Greenville reduced the population of the community. The post office closed in 1925. By the late 1920s Neyland had just over fifty residents, and the Great Depression further decreased the population, to an estimated twenty-five by the mid-1940s. Sometime after World War II Neyland ceased to exist.