Harrison, TX - Ghost Towns on Waymarking.com

The historical marker's text is preceded by "1871-1915", which suggests the town's heyday. It reads:

Named for Confederate General James E. Harrison, kinsman of U.S. President Wm. Henry Harrison and close friend of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Born in South Carolina. Early settler, political leader and landowner in McLennan and Falls counties.

Member of the Texas Secession Convention. As an adopted son of Chickasaw Indian Tribe, headed special Civil War missions in Indian Territory.

As a stockholder in Waco Tap Railway, gave right-of-way and site for Harrison station. Town had post office, school, stores, churches, gins, gristmills.

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The Handbook of Texas Online has an article (see below) about Harrison to fill in the gaps. It's about twenty years old at this point, and interestingly, refers to Harrison as having a population of a hundred in 2000. There is certainly nothing left of the old townsite today, and the best that can be said is that Harrison is now a rural community. However, its name does appear on a few maps, but a Google Maps search for "Harrison" will turn up the Texas county by that name. The article reads:

Harrison is on State Highway 6 some eight miles southeast of downtown Waco in eastern McLennan County. The area was part of a plantation owned by Gen. James E. Harrison during the late 1850s and 1860s. After the Civil War, a mill, a cotton gin, a school, and a general store were established to serve the needs of former slaves who remained on the plantation as sharecroppers. In 1872, when the Houston and Texas Central Railway laid its track from Bremond to Ross, the community became a station known as Harrison or Harrison's Switch, in honor of General Harrison, who had given the railroad permission to cross his land. A post office was established at Harrison in April 1878 with Joseph W. Moore as postmaster. By the mid-1880s the community had 150 residents, three general stores, two churches, and a district school; cotton was the primary crop grown by area farmers. In 1896 Harrison was the focus of a black school district with two teachers and sixty-six students. After 1900 the community began to decline. Its post office was discontinued in 1905, and by 1920 its population had fallen to an estimated twenty. Thirty-five residents and two businesses were reported there during the late 1930s. A school and a few scattered houses marked the community on county highway maps in the 1940s. The population of Harrison was given as twenty-five from the 1940s through 1990. In 2000, however, the population was 100.

Reason for Abandonment: Economic Date Abandoned: 01/01/1915 Related Web Page: [Web Link]

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