Reese

Reese is on U.S. Highway 175 twenty miles northwest of Rusk in northwestern Cherokee County. The area was first settled around the time of the Civil War, but a community did not develop until a logging camp was established there in the 1890s. In 1895 a post office opened and was called Andy, in honor of Jacksonville postmaster A. J. (Andy) Lane. During the late 1890s the community had a store, a mill, a gin, and a few houses; in 1896 it reported a population of fifteen. In 1901 the Texas and New Orleans Railroad built a switch nearby and named it Reese after Reese Lloyd, a conductor on the line. John H. Henderson, the postmaster at Andy, petitioned to change the name of the post office to Reese and actively promoted the new town. The mill, a gin, and a general store at Andy became the nucleus of the new community. By 1914 Reese had a school, a church, a drugstore, a cotton gin, two sawmills, two general stores, and a population of fifty. Reese continued to prosper during the 1920s, and its population reached 100 by 1929. When U.S. Highway 175 was built just north of town in 1929, most Reese businesses and residents moved there. After World War II the community declined. Its school closed in 1949, and its post office in 1954. Many businesses were forced to shut down. Later, though, Reese rebounded. In 1976 a new community center was built. The Church of Christ congregation renovated the old depot. In 1990 Reese was a dispersed rural community and reported a population of seventy-five. The population remained the same in 2000.