Rhonesboro

Rhonesboro, at the junction of State Highway 154 and Farm Road 1002, twelve miles west of Gilmer in western Upshur County, was established around 1900 as a stop on the Marshall and East Texas Railway. A post office opened there in 1902, and by 1914 Rhonesboro had a cotton gin, Baptist and Methodist churches, a bank, five general stores, a blacksmith shop, and an estimated population of 300. During the 1920s, however, the town began to decline. By the mid-1930s it had only a church, two stores, and an estimated population of 255. The decline continued after World War II. The post office was closed, and by the mid-1960s only a church, a store, a service station, and a few scattered houses remained. In 1990 Rhonesboro was a dispersed community with an estimated population of forty.