Rye

Rye is at the junction of Farm Road 787 and State Highway 146, sixty miles northwest of Beaumont in northeastern Liberty County. In 1845 First Concord Baptist Church was established in the area. Among its founders were Sam Houston's wife Margaret Lea Houston, her mother Nancy Mofette Lea, and her sister Mrs. Antoinette Bledsoe. People drifted into the vicinity by the 1850s, but more organized settlement did not begin until the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway was completed through the area. In 1902 a community post office, named for early settler M. C. Rye, was opened, and in 1929 a new voting box was instituted. In 1935 P. A. Racki, a native of Yugoslavia, organized the Racki Lumber Company at Rye, harvesting the local hardwood and pine forests for his sawmill. By the mid-1940s the community had three businesses and a population of sixty. Rye reported seven businesses and seventy-six residents by 1984 and still reported a population of seventy-six in 2000, with thirteen businesses.

Adapted from the official Handbook of Texas, a state encyclopedia developed by the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). It is an authoritative source of trusted historical records.