Rake Pocket

Pinehill, also known as Pine Hill, is on a hill covered with pine trees eleven miles east of Henderson in far eastern Rusk County. It was first settled in 1844 by "Uncle" Henderson Hillin and received its nickname, Rake Pocket, from one of two sources. One story claims that it was named by a man who thought he had been overcharged by a hotel there. The other is that while Henderson Hillin was traveling through the area in an ox wagon, he ran out of feed for his animals and literally raked his pockets to find a few grains for them. In 1848, after he settled and began to farm, Hillin wrote back to his friends and family in Alabama and Georgia to invite them to join him. He was a merchant in Pinehill for nearly half a century. The first post office was established under the name of Pine Hills in 1847 with James W. Clark as postmaster. The office was moved to Sharon, in Panola County, in 1856. The following year it was moved back to Pinehill. By the time the Civil War broke out, the town was of considerable size. Between 1909 and 1922 the Timpson and Henderson Railway provided an outlet for the timber production of the area, and Pinehill achieved a measure of prosperity. In 1913 a newspaper called the Pinehill Times was being published. In 1916 a fire destroyed ten businesses, and there was another town fire in 1937. However, in 1940 the town still had five businesses and a population of 250. This figure was about the same as it had been through the first three decades of the century. The post office was discontinued sometime after 1930. During the 1950s the population fell to 100, and from 1968 to 2000 it was forty-nine.