History of Hodgson, Texas: From Settlement to Decline
Published: 1952
Updated: February 1, 1995
Hodgson, five miles southwest of DeKalb in western Bowie County, was named for John J. Hodgson, its first postmaster. Settlement of the farming and lumbering area started around 1836, and a community began to emerge shortly after the Civil War, when Lee E. Harkey built a cotton gin and a sawmill at the site. A post office was opened there in 1893, and by 1896 the town's population was estimated at 180. Later the community declined. Its post office was closed in 1904, and by 1910 its population had fallen to twenty-five. The last available population estimates, made in the 1940s, set the population at thirty-five. In 1984 the community had a church and one business.
Places:
The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.
Claudia Hazlewood, “Hodgson, TX,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed March 09, 2026, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/hodgson-tx.
Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
TID:
HTH12
- 1952
- February 1, 1995
