Portland

Portland is a church community located on Farm Road 1552 three miles northeast of Bailey and ten miles south of Bonham, the county seat, in Fannin County. The original title to the land in the area was held by the University of Texas. In 1873 Jesse Green London, one of the area's first settlers, bought a tract of land. The main Greenville-Bonham road came through Portland; it was a dirt road, and on muddy days the trip between the two towns would take two days to travel by horse. The earliest church was constructed in 1882. Portland had a post office from 1884 to 1887, when mail was delivered from Bailey. The Cotton Belt Railroad built south of Portland in 1887, and in 1888 the town had one store, a blacksmith shop, a woodshop, and a schoolhouse. Portland farmers produced cotton, fruit, and vegetables. The Portland Church was organized in 1898 in the Portland school. In 1909 the present church building was built with donated labor. Several district conferences have been held at the church during the years. For a number of years there was a gin and gin pool just west of the church, and as many as thirty people would be baptized in the gin pool. The Congregational Methodist Church of Portland licensed Herschel Adamson to preach in 1940. Since 1966 an annual homecoming has been held on the first Sunday in August. Portland appeared on the highway maps in 1983 as a church community; no population statistics were available.