Owentown

Owentown is located on U.S. Highway 271 two miles south of Winona on Wiggins, Harris, and Ray creeks in central Smith County. It became a switch on the St. Louis Southwestern Railway in 1877, but the community did not develop until World War II, when warehouses and other facilities were built at the site to serve Camp Fannin, an infantry replacement training center. The town, named for Cliff E. Owen of Tyler, began to grow in the postwar years as small industries moved into the old military and railroad warehouses. In 1949 the East Texas Tuberculosis Sanatorium (now the University of Texas Health Center at Tyler) was established nearby. There has never been an Owentown school; local students attended Winona Independent School District by 1952 and were still enrolled there in 1969. In 1972 the area was mostly residential, and McDougie Cemetery, a drag strip, a sewage-disposal facility, and a water tank were located in the vicinity. The population in 1976 was about 200, and some small industries were located there.