Cherokee County History Page: 14
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John R. Taylor, Antioch farmer, lumber-
man, cotton ginner, delivers 50 bales of
cotton to Terrell M. Boles, Jacksonville
buyer, in one of the largest single sales of
cotton in the early 1920's when cotton was
king in Cherokee County agriculture.
Taylor delivered the cotton by wagon in
front of the old First National Bank
Building. The sale totaled $4,165.35 and
averaged $83.31 per bale. - Gordon Hug-
ghins Photo Collectionproduced in 1850. Corn meal was so essential to the pioneer diet
that grist mills were the first industries established in every com-
munity. For example, at least seven water-powered grist mills were
built by the late 1850's on a single, strong stream that drained
western Cherokee County. Beginning on the headwaters of Gum
Creek north of present US 175 and traveling south, the mill owners
were Joseph Fry, Joe C. Rushing northwest of old Jacksonville,
Albartus Arnwine at the Tillman Chapel Road crossing, Elijah
Earle and later the Morris Brothers east of the present Pierce's
Chapel (same mill), George M. Doherty southwest of present Pine
Grove, John M. Beard southwest of Gent Mountain, and S. M.
Crume at Pine Town. Growing wheat and making flour were not
much in evidence until after 1860.
Eighty percent of the farms supported a few sheep to insure a
local supply of wool for spinning and weaving. Almost everyone
owned milk cows, and vast quantities of butter and cheese were
produced. In addition, about 10,000 head of beef cattle, many of
them the progeny of Indian herds, were wandering loose. The Bell
and Norman families came to northeast Cherokee County in 1849
and secured their first stock of cattle from George W. Stone, who
had ranged the territory even before the Indians left. Vast herds of
hogs, estimated at 18,000 head, roamed the woods and lived off the
bountiful acorn crops. Stockraisers used their own peculiar ear-
marks and brands to distinguish their livestock from their neigh-
bors'.
By 1860 Cherokee County was becoming more like the Old South,
from where most of the settlers came. The number of slaves had
increased appreciably in the preceding 10 years. Twenty-six per-
cent of a total population of 12,098, the third largest in the state,
were slaves. The increased labor pool and improved roads leading to
distant markets spurred cotton production to a five-fold increase.
When Texas joined the Confederacy in 1861, "King Cotton" be-
came the money of the South. In Cherokee County, business and
industrial ventures were financed with cotton. After the war, land
deals were concluded by the delivery of a stipulated number of bales
of cotton at a specified time.
Even the destruction of the slave system failed to slow cotton
production. Large-scale landowners, by implementing the tenant
sharecropper system, continued to work their fields with former
slaves. County cotton production reached 10,000 bales in the 1870's
and even the invasion of the destructive boll weevil from Mexico in
the 1890's did not discourage the farmer too long. Cotton prices
climbed to 40 cents a pound in 1918, but fell to five cents a poundafter World War I. Cotton production topped out in 1928 at 37,000
bales, when the crop sold for seven cents per pound. Over-produc-
tion and the 1930's Depression prompted the United States govern-
ment to restrict cotton acreage. In 1933, cotton allotments based on
a percentage of previous production were assigned by law to each
farm. To comply with the regulation, 2,120 farmers in the county
plowed up hundreds of acres of cotton for which they received
$240,000 in government payments. Production was down to 1,000
bales at the end of World War II, rose to 26,440 bales in 1959, fell to
278 bales in 1968, but by 1970 no cotton was raised in the county.
The climate and soil of Cherokee County are suited ideally to
growing peach trees. From time immemorial peaches had been
raised by Indian and white settlers for home use. The commercial
fruit industry in the county had its genesis as an educational
project at Larissa College. Dr. F. L. Yoakum, a progressive thinker
with a scientific bent of nature, came from Tehaucana to accept the
presidency of the fledgling college in 1856. Dr. Yoakum and one of
his advanced students, G. A. McKee Sr., put together a museum
and botanical exhibit as a learning aid for the school's well-devel-
oped science department. When the Civil War broke up the college
and swept most of its students to the battle front, Dr. Yoakum's
interest in horticulture led to experimenting with fruit trees and
the establishment of a nursery in the early 1870's. His sons, B. F.
Yoakum, later a railroad magnate in New York, and C. H. Yoakum,
a future attorney and congressman, peddled trees grown at the
Larissa nursery throughout the area.
G. A. McKee Sr., after serving four years in the Civil War in Co.
C., 3rd Texas Cavalry, returned to Larissa where he operated a
flour and grist mill on Killough Creek and established his own
nursery. When the Kansas & Gulf Short Line Railroad by-passed
Larissa, McKee moved to Mt. Selman and continued the nursery
business with his sons, G. A. McKee Jr. and S. R. McKee. S. R.
McKee operated the Bon Ayr Rose Garden and Nursery until he
sold it in 1906 and moved to New Mexico.
A Cumberland Presbyterian minister is credited with planting
the first peach orchard in Jacksonville in 1878. The Rev. N. A.
Davis, a former Chaplain in Hood's Civil War Brigade, came to
Rusk after the war and started a pioneer nursery. One of Davis's
employees in Jacksonville was John Wesley Love, who in 1881, with
partner M. L. Hodges, started their own Elberta peach orchard
which eventually covered 600 acres on present US 69 north of
Jacksonville to Love's Lookout Park. From his packing sheds on
the Cotton Belt Railroad, 100 carloads of peaches were shipped in,.
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Cherokee County Historical Commission (Tex.). Cherokee County History, book, 2001; Jacksonville, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth354360/m1/24/: accessed May 4, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Cherokee County Historical Commission.