Mars Community - Van Zandt County, TX
N 32° 21.427 W 095° 43.563
15S E 243471 N 3583288
A Texas Historical Marker stands on the west side of FM 773, just south of the intersection with FM 2339, noting this as the site of the Mars community, whose best days were seen before 1936.
Waymark Code: WMP69J
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 07/08/2015
Views: 3
The Handbook of Texas Online indicates that the settlement bears the name of brothers, John and Henry Marrs -- not the fourth planet in our solar system -- but somewhere in time, "Marrs" became "Mars." This quiet community has no rovers, and is a little too far south of the Red River for it to have the red soil like the Red Planet.
The Texas Historical Marker provides some background:
A settlement known as Mars flourished at this crossroads from the 1880s until about 1930. The intersection of the Tyler-Porter's Bluff Road (now FM 2339) and the Canton-Athens Road (now FM 773) provided a likely site for a community to develop.
Early settlers in the area included John Ammons and his son-in-law, Henry Washington Brown, who arrived in 1869 and purchased 320 acres of land. By 1871, Ammons had deeded two of his acres to the Pleasant Ridge Church and School for constructing a church building and schoolhouse.
Wheat was the original crop that area farmers grew, but cotton soon replaced it as the primary crop. H.W. Brown built a cotton gin and grist mill for the community, and a blacksmith shop and two mercantile stores soon followed. Subsequent cotton gin operators included T.J. Bristow, E.P. Miller, W.R. Dyer and W.W. McWilliams. According to local tradition, the mercantile operations were run by H.W. Brown, Thomas Hobbs, T.O Wells, W.A. "Algie" Harville, Sr., and J.W. Barefoot.
In 1891, a post office was established to serve the settlement. Originally called Acme, the station's name was changed seven years later to Mars to reflect the name of the community. A declining population caused the post office to close in 1907 and the school to consolidate with the Bois D'Arc School in 1916. Although little physical evidence remains of the Mars community, its history helps illustrate the story of cotton gin settlements in Texas.
Website of the Extraterrestrial Location: [Web Link]
Website of location on Earth: [Web Link]
Celestial Body: Mars
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