Richland

Richland, at the junction of Interstate 45 and State Highway 14, on Pisgah Ridge twelve miles south of Corsicana in south central Navarro County, was first settled in the late 1840s. Asa Chambers had established a store on the trail from Corsicana to Franklin by 1848, when a post office, named Richland Crossing after nearby Richland Creek, opened in his store. The store, which moved and changed ownership several times, continued to form the nucleus of the community until the early 1870s. When the Houston and Texas Central Railway was built through the area in 1871, the station on the Pisgah Ridge near the store was designated Richland, and a new community began to develop around the depot. A post office named Richland began operating in 1878, and by the mid-1890s the town had two steam gristmills and cotton gins, three general stores, a grocer, two blacksmiths, two saloons, a hardware store, a bank, and an estimated population of 150. The first school had begun operating around the time of the Civil War, and by 1906 the town had a two-teacher school with an enrollment of seventy-five. Richland continued to prosper during the 1920s, reaching a peak population of 750 in 1929. During the 1930s its population began to decline, in part because of the Great Depression. By 1950 the town had twelve businesses and a population of 369. The decline continued during the 1960s and 1970s, and by 1990 Richland had 244 residents and one business. The population reached 291 in 2000.