Patrick

Patrick is on the Brazos River eleven miles northwest of downtown Waco in northern McLennan County. When the area was settled in the 1850s, the community was called Garrett's Mill. A post office called Starke Grove was established there in August 1858, with Isaac H. Roberts as postmaster; the office was discontinued in 1866. The community was called Patrick when a new post office opened in July 1882. It may have been named for Patrick Gallagher, who served as the postmaster.

In the mid-1880s Patrick had three general stores and sixty residents; cotton, wheat, oats, and corn were the principal crops grown by area farmers. By 1890 the community also included two churches, a school, and a steam gristmill and cotton gin; the population had grown to 150. Soon thereafter, however, Patrick began to fade. By the mid-1890s the number of residents was estimated at 100, and the number of businesses had declined. The post office closed in 1909, and by the following year the population had fallen to sixty. Highway maps from the 1930s and 1940s showed only a few houses in the area, although by the 1970s some additional development had occurred. Two churches and several residences marked the community on maps in the 1970s, and area farmers grew cotton and hay.