Roddy

Roddy is on State Highway 198 and Farm Road 47 in southwestern Van Zandt County. Once considered part of the Elm Grove community, the town dates to around 1840, when settlement began in Widow's Prairie, one mile east of the present site. The community expanded with the arrival of five families in the 1850s and eight more by the 1870s. Among the early settlers was the Thomason family, for whom Thomason Lake and an original cemetery in the northeast corner of the community were named. Roddy had a post office by 1878 and from 1885 to 1907, after which mail was delivered from Mabank. T. G. Roddy served as postmaster in 1890 and S. G. Roddy in 1892. The town was named for the family of Steve Gavan Roddy, who arrived in 1884. He subsequently built a sawmill, gristmill, and gin and by 1885 had established a mercantile business. The first log house served as the community school. It became a public free school around 1885 and in 1894 was consolidated with Harper School to become the Mono School. The Elm Grove cemetery, now marked with an historical marker, was started in 1883, and a church, built by members of the Methodist, Presbyterian, Missionary Baptist, and Christian churches, was completed in 1900. The population was 150 in 1896, and the local school had thirty-four pupils and one teacher in 1905. The population dwindled to forty in 1933 but was 150 when it was last recorded at the end of the decade. The A and B Woodland development attracted new residents in the early 1970s, and a trucking business was located at Roddy in 1980, but by then state highway maps showed only a church and cemetery at the townsite. Little farming was done as residents commuted to jobs outside the community, and most of the surrounding land was used for pasture. The newest business employed twenty people.