Warrens Bend

Warrens Bend is near the Red River twenty miles northwest of Gainesville in north central Cooke County. The area was first surveyed in the 1830s by Daniel Montague, who discovered a Caddo Indian village in the river valley. Col. William Bean and Col. Holland Coffee stopped at the village after a two-year trapping excursion and saw the valley as a prime spot for an Indian trading post. They found a third partner in Abel Warren and established a trading post in 1844. By the 1880s the community had a general store, a cotton gin, a blacksmith, and a saloon. A post office at Barlow, two miles south of Warrens Bend, served the area from 1889 to 1905. A flood in 1908 discouraged people from settling in the area. A second flood in 1915 introduced bermuda grass, which encroached on the cotton fields. Between 1915 and 1920 the boll weevil began causing problems for area farmers. The Warrens Bend school was consolidated with the school in nearby Sivells Bend in 1939. In 1986 Warrens Bend had a population of nine.