CHEROKEE,
TEXAS. Cherokee is on State Highway 16 some fifteen miles
south of San Saba in southern San Saba County. The settlement
of upper Cherokee Creek, from which the community took
its name, dates to the early 1850s, when P. P. "Pop"
Woodard established a ranch five miles west of the site
of what is now Cherokee.
The second oldest post office in the county was the Cherokee
post office, which was moved several times before arriving
at the site that it still occupied in the 1980s. It originally
opened in 1858 in the home of J. R. Williams in Llano
County, then moved in 1869 to the residence of Capt. John
Williams in Hanna, a school community on Cherokee Creek
in San Saba County. In June 1871 the office was moved
to the Montgomery school community on the north bank of
the creek, where it shared a building with William O.
Handshey's store and the Landrum Hotel. The post office
was moved again in September 1878 to the home of M. H.
Wadsworth on the Jackson Branch of Cherokee Creek, then
moved one last time in July of 1879 to James Samuel Hart's
store in Cherokee.
David Seth Hanna laid out the permanent townsite of Cherokee
in 1878. By the mid-1880s the settlement had developed
into the processing and marketing center of an active
farming and ranching economy, and by the mid-1890s the
town reported a population of 500.
In the 1890s the agricultural economy of the Cherokee
valley supported a hotel, several churches and schools,
a number of processing and supply businesses, and various
craft and professional services.
Cherokee also became a county center of higher education
when Francis Marion Behrns established the Cherokee Academy
around 1894. Twice reorganized-first as the West Texas
Normal and Business College (1896) and later as Cherokee
Junior College (1911)-the school operated until its sale
to the county school district in 1921. It then served
the community as Cherokee High School until fire razed
the main building in 1945. The school was rebuilt using
its original façade.
In the 1920s Cherokee supported a short-lived bank and
two newspapers, and for the next several decades the number
of residents remained stable at about 250. In 1990 Cherokee,
with a population estimated at 175, served primarily as
a supply and postal center for a stock raising and farming
economy. Local agricultural production centered on sheep,
poultry, and pecans.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Alma Ward Hamrick, The Call of the San Saba: A History
of San Saba County (San Antonio: Naylor, 1941; 2d ed.,
Austin: Jenkins, 1969). San Saba County History (San
Saba, Texas: San Saba County Historical Commission,
1983). Alice Gray Upchurch, "A Sketch History of
San Saba County," Southwestern Historical Quarterly
50 (July 1946).
Daniel
P. Greene
From:
The
Handbook of Texas Online
Editors note:
In recent years, the community of Cherokee has seen
a growth in population
as artisans and craftspeople are drawn to the area.
Many are setting up shops
and venue's locally but market internationally as well
through the internet.
B. W. Cockrum
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