Sparta

Sparta was on Cowhouse Creek nine miles northwest of Belton in northwestern Bell County. A mill was built in the vicinity of the future community in the late 1860s, and the Sparta post office opened in 1873. By 1890 the town had thirty-five inhabitants, a mill and gin, a general store, and a blacksmith shop; the population had increased to seventy-five in 1896. The Sparta school had fifty-two pupils and one teacher in 1903. The post office closed in 1920, and Sparta had some eighty-four residents and one business in 1933. In 1948 there were two churches, the school, and two businesses in the town. The site of the community was inundated by the damming of the Leon River to impound Belton Lake in the 1950s.