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ARGENTA
Argenta is a rural community on Farm Road 88 nineteen miles southeast of
George West in the southeastern corner of Live Oak County. Richard Bethel
Bomar moved to the area from Oklahoma in 1903, cleared land, and sold it
to friends from Oklahoma. In 1907 the community was granted a post office
with the name of Ego; citizens built a church in 1909 under Bomar's
leadership, and in 1910 the settlement was renamed Argenta. Between 1910
and 1926 Argenta grew to include a general store, a gristmill, and a
blacksmith shop. In 1917 a schoolhouse was built, and by 1925 the town had
an estimated population of fifty. A cotton gin brought from Oklahoma was
never put into operation, however, and about 1925 the community began to
decline. It lost its post office in 1926, in 1927 the general store
closed, and by 1940 only the schoolhouse, the church, and scattered
dwellings remained at the site. In 1945 the school was consolidated with
the Mathis school district. In 1981 the church was still used by a small
Church of Christ congregation; the old schoolhouse was a community center.
In the early 1980s new homes were being built in the area.
ARGENTA, TX." The Handbook of Texas Online.
https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hta02 |
