Percilla

Percilla, at the junction of Farm roads 2022 and 228, six miles northeast of Grapeland in north central Houston County, was first settled just before the Civil War. A church and school named Evergreen opened there in 1879, and during the 1880s the community was known by that name. In 1891, when a post office was established, citizens requested that the name be changed to Procilla, after prominent early settler J. M. Procilla (or Procella). Postal officials misread the name as Percilla, and the town retained that altered spelling. By 1896 Percilla had two general stores; Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches; and an estimated population of twenty-five. In the mid-1930s it still had a church, a cemetery, a school, and four businesses. Its estimated population in 1936 was fifty. After World War II its school was closed, but the population of Percilla had grown to nearly 100 by the mid-1970s. In 1990 Percilla was a dispersed rural community with a church, a community center, a cemetery, and number of scattered houses. That year its reported population was ninety-five. The population remained the same in 2000.