Tuckertown

Pleasant Glade was a rural community in southwestern Van Zandt County that bordered Odom, Phalba, Rock Hill, Beard, and Big Rock communities twenty miles southwest of Canton. Settlers raised cotton, food crops, and corn and sorghum for livestock feed. Until the 1880s the nearest country store was at Phalba. By 1900 a cotton gin, a sawmill, and a blacksmith shop were established in the eastern part of the community and known as Needmore. Other stores near the boundary with Rock Hill became part of Tuckertown, named for the general store opened by Otis Tucker in 1925. A one-room schoolhouse was built by 1890, and enrollment reached forty-six in 1906. A new school was built in 1909 and consolidated with the Canton Independent School District in 1950. Two tornadoes struck the area in 1924 and 1927, causing considerable damage. In 1936 the community had Pleasant Glade School, a church, a single business, and scattered residences, but during World War II the town shrank. By 1990 ranching employed most residents who did not commute to nearby towns.