Varela

Prairie Grove is on Farm Road 1953 eight miles northeast of Groesbeck in eastern Limestone County. The area was part of a land grant made to the Varela brothers by the Mexican government in 1830. Early settlers in the region were said to have come from Alabama. A post office was established at Prairie Grove in 1878 with Samuel D. Hughes as postmaster. By the mid-1880s the community had three steam gristmills and cotton gins, two churches, a school, and 100 residents. The Prairie Grove school had 116 students in 1896. In 1906 the name of the post office was changed to Varela, but postal service was discontinued the following year, probably because the Trinity and Brazos Valley Railway had bypassed the town. The community name reverted to Prairie Grove because of its long-time usage, and mail for local residents was sent to Mexia. The population of Prairie Grove fell to twenty-five by the early 1930s. A church, a business, and several scattered houses marked the community on county highway maps in the late 1940s. Only the church and a cemetery appeared on maps of the area in the 1980s.