Woodbine

Woodbine is at the intersection of Farm roads 678 and 3164, eight miles east of Gainesville in east central Cooke County. The first settlers arrived in the area in 1845 and 1846, but the first permanent resident, R. C. Nelson, arrived in 1864, locating about two miles north of the site of the present community. Woodbine was established in 1876 on land donated by W. H. Mitchell, who opened the settlement's first store, and George Nelson as Mineola. When the Denison and Pacific Railway built through in the fall of 1879 the community was renamed Woodbine, for the wild woodbine vines in the area. A post office operated from 1879 until sometime after 1930. Woodbine was the first Cooke County community to receive rail service and a train depot, and this rail connection brought growth to the settlement. By 1900 the population was 113. Woodbine reported the same population throughout the middle 1930s. By the 1940s the population was fifty, and by the late 1950s it was twenty. Perhaps due to its proximity to Gainesville, the population of Woodbine reached 248 during the late 1960s and remained constant at 246 until 1990.