Pickens

Pickens, also known as Pickens Spur, is at the junction of U.S. Highway 175 and Farm Road 2329, five miles northwest of Athens in northern Henderson County. The area was first settled by John Mires Pickens, who built a home there in the mid-1850s. After the Texas and New Orleans Railroad was built through about 1900, a flag station named Pickens Spur was established. The name was later shortened to Pickens. In the mid-1930s the settlement had a church, two stores, and a population of twenty-five. After World War II many residents left the area, but as late as the mid-1970s a store and a church still existed. In the early 1990s Pickens was a dispersed community. In 2000 the population was twenty.