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Featured Listings
RICHLAND CHAMBERS LAKE is located one hour SOUTH OF DALLAS and is considered one of Texas’ “BEST KEPT SECRETS”. Built between 1982 and 1987, it is the third largest lake to lie totally within the State of Texas. The lake is controlled by the Tarrant Regional Water District and they issue permits to built boathouses, retaining walls, etc. The 330 miles of its shoreline features impressive lakefront homes. You will also find affordable properties for weekend getaways whether your lifestyle is fishing, hunting, ranching or just to kick back and unwind from our busy lifestyles. Experience championship fishing tournaments, leisure lake living and a wide variety of recreational activities. The deep, clear water harbors nearly all species of game fish found in Texas with numbers and sizes on the increase. Enjoy water skiing, boating, sailing and camping with access from our marinas and public boat ramps and docks. If you are searching for farms and ranches, Freestone and Navarro counties have some of the most fertile soil, perfect for raising cattle and growing crops or just looking for small acreage for gardening and off road activities, then look no further than our area. HISTORY ST. ELMO, TEXAS is on FM 416 on the south side of Richland Chambers and was settled about 1849 by families from Georgia, Alabama and Florida and was supposedly named from a popular nineteenth-century novel. The population of St. Elmo began to decline in the early 1900’s when the Trinity and Brazos Valley Railway was built through the nearby town of Streetman. By the 1930s St. Elmo reported twenty-five residents and a church, school, a cemetery, a business and a few scattered dwellings. A school cafeteria and auditorium were built in 1941, when oil was discovered within the school district, but the district was annexed by Fairfield in 1948. The auditorium was used as a community center until it was destroyed by fire in 1972.
A weekly newspaper, the Texas Pioneer was established at Fairfield in 1957. Subsequent newspapers included the Ledger (1869-72) and the Recorder, first published in 1876 and still in existence in the 1990s.
In 1900 Corsicana had grown to 9313 inhabitants, with three banks, twelve newspapers, eight hotels, forty-nine retail stores, a cotton mill, thirty-two doctors and thirty-five saloons. The presence of the latte was a cause of great concern to many Corsicanans and led to a growing temperance movement in the city that culminated in the passage of prohibition law in November 1904. The closing of the saloons had some short-term benefits, but bootleggers rapidly filled the gap, serving the needs of the legions of oilfield workers. The oil boom brought a new wave of prosperity to the town. A new courthouse – the one still in use in 1990 was completed in 1905 and in 1917 the Corsicana Chamber of Commerce was founded. Corsicana’s leading industries during the 1950s included the Texas-Miller Products Company, a leading producer of hats; the Oil City Iron Works; the Wolf Brand Company, producer of chili and tamales; several textile plants; the Bethlehem Supply Company and Collin Street Bakery, a leading producer of fruitcakes.
The above HISTORY was obtained from Handbook of Texas. |
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ENJOY LEISURE
LIVING AT RICHLAND CHAMBERS LAKE
FAIRFIELD, TEXAS is
the county seat of Freestone County, is at the junction of Interstate
45, U. S. Highways 75 and 84, and Farm roads 27, 488 and 1580, in the
center of the county. The site was originally called Mound Prairie, but
the name was changed to Fairfield when the location was chosen for the
county seat in 1850. The original town site consisting of 100 acres was
donated by David Hall Love. Rich farmland, vast amounts of timber,
clear springs and proximity to the Trinity River for transportation
attracted settlers from the eastern states. Fairfield acquired a post
office in 1851 and by September 1852 had three dry-goods stores, two
hotels, a grocery and a jail.
From 1890 to 1931
and again in 1933, Fairfield was the site of an annual reunion of
Confederate veterans, who held their three-day gathering on land donated
by William Lewis Moody and his brother Leroy. In 1951 the town held its
centennial celebration on the old reunion campground. The success of
the centennial led the townspeople to begin holding an annual
rodeo-homecoming festival, which evolved into the county fair held each
November. Other annual events include the Queen of the Trinity Star
Pilgrimage in the spring, the National Coon Hunters Association meeting
in the fall, and an arts and crafts fair in November. Local attractions
and recreation facilities include the Freestone County Historical Museum
and the Fairfield Lake State Park completed in 1972.
CORSICANA, TEXAS,
county seat and largest city of Navarro County is in the central portion
of the county and fifty-eight miles southeast of Dallas at the junction
of Interstate 45, U. S. highways 75 and 287 and State highways 22 and
31. It was established in 1848 to serve as the county seat of
newly-established Navarro County. Jose Antonio Navarro, a hero of the
Texas Revolution after whom the county was named, was given the honor of
naming the new town. He suggested Corsicana after the island of
Corsica, the birthplace of his parents. David R. Mitchell, an early
area settler, donated 100 acres for the town site and with the
assistance of Thomas I. Smith, platted the land and began selling lots.
The new torn was centered near a log tavern built in 1847 and owned and
operated by Rev. Hampton McKinney. The first courthouse, a two-room log
structure was constructed in 1849 and served as a church, meeting hall
and civic center until a new frame building was constructed in 1853.
Within a few years of the town’s founding, a larger number of mercantile
establishments opened on and around the courthouse square, and new brick
courthouse – a symbol of the town’s growing prosperity was erected in
1858. The first newspaper, the Prairie Blade, was founded in 1855; it
was replaced by the Express in 1857, which in turn was replaced by the
Observer on the eve of the Civil War.
The greatest spur to
the town’s development, however, came in November 1871 with the
completion of the Houston and Texas Central Railroad. The coming of the
railroad brought numerous settlers and new merchants, among them the
Sanger Brothers, the Padgitts and others, who established stores near
the new depot on East Collin Street. 
