Shiloh

Shiloh (Shilough) is a small farming community at the intersection of State Highway 24 and Farm Road 1531, four miles southwest of Klondike in southwestern Delta County. The area, originally part of the John Hamilton land grant, was first settled in 1844, when John Miller brought his family to Texas from Hopkins County, Kentucky. In the first year local residents traveled to Pinhook, later called Paris, to transact business. But Miller established a corn mill in 1845, and a settlement soon developed around it. Residents also quickly organized the Shiloh Baptist congregation, and in 1847 they built a combination church, schoolhouse, and community center. By 1867 the Shiloh school district had been started, and, also during the 1860s, local Methodists established a church. The Baptist church moved to nearby Needmore before 1900. Early in the 1900s thirty-one community members organized a chapter of the Woodman of the World. In 1904 the Shiloh Church of the Nazarene was built, under the direction of C. B. Jernigan; it had seventeen charter members, including Ethel Sharp, J. H. Ray, J. T. Simmons, and Emma and Bruce Robnett. The church transferred to Klondike in 1906 but later returned. The school enrolled fifty-four White students and employed one teacher in 1905. Students in the Shiloh system numbered between fifty and seventy from about 1910 through the 1920s. During the Great Depression the local population declined, and in 1934 the school was conducted by Fred England and had thirty-five students. The 1936 county highway map did not identify the community, though it showed the school, a church, and Shiloh Cemetery. In 1945 the school merged with the Klondike School to form the West Delta school district. A 1964 map labeled the Shiloh Church and Cemetery and a few scattered dwellings at the site. By 1970 local students attended classes within the Cooper Independent School District, and in 1984 maps designated Shiloh as a church and cemetery community.

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.