• Arkansas isn’t the only state with a link to the Jot 'Em Down Store, made famous by the Lum and Abner radio show in the l930s and 1940s. A small town in Delta County, Texas, was once known as Jot ’Em Down.
     

  • Pee Dee, a community which once stood in Madison County, was named for a Georgia family, Mr. and Mrs. W.M. Pee Dee, who settled there around 1830. The name also belongs to the Pee Dee Indians of South
    Carolina.
     

  • Yallo Busha, a community in Camp County, is an old Indian word
    meaning “Beautiful Stream.” Only Yallo Busha Cemetery remains in the
    community.
     

  • Fort Teran, a vanished fort community on the Neches River in Tyler
    County, was named for General Manuel de Mier y Teran, a friend of Peter
    Ellis Bean, who built the fort.
     

  • Buena Vista, an settlement in Shelby County, was originally called
    Buck Snort, supposed for a deer who snorted at an old woman. The town
    was later named for Buena Vista, a town in Mexico where a townsman had
    fought a battle.  The name means “a beautiful view.”
     

  • Barnum, a sawmill ghost town in Polk County, was supposedly named for
    circus man P.T. Barnum by the town’s builder, W.T. Carter. Another
    story says the town got its name from a Carter friend who also owned a
    sawmill.
     

  • Ninevah. in Leon County, was named for the Biblical city. The
    community was known for its gunfights, fist fights and political feuds.
     

  • Palmetto, a forgotten town in San Jacinto County, was named for the
    Palmetto Lumber Company, which operated a sawmill there. Only a
    cemetery remains in the community.

     



    (Excerpted from “The Forgotten Towns of East Texas, Volume I,” by Bob & Doris Bowman)

     

Contacts:  Bob Bowman & Associates, 515 South First Street, Lufkin, Texas 75901.  Phone 936.634.7444. Fax 936.634.7750.  E-mail: bobb@consolidated.net or dbowman@consolidated.net.  Copyright, 2007. Bob Bowman & Associates. All rights reserved.  Website design by Bill Cameron Consulting.