Published: December 10, 2008 01:39 pm      

From ‘Skin Tight’ to Lone Star

Recently, Shelley Cleaver, member of the Cherokee County Historical Commission, recalled memories of his hometown, Lone Star, in an interview. Lone Star, first known as “Skin Tight” was a thriving small town in eastern Cherokee County, not far from the present town of Ponta, before the turn of the century.

In the early 1880s, cattle buyer Henry L. Reeves built a store on the joining lines of the G. Chisom and F.S. Manchaca Surveys, which became known as “Skin Tight” because of his close business practices. When the town that built up around this site petitioned for a post office, they were told that “Skin Tight” was not available. The post office was established June 13, 1883, under the name Lone Star, a more appealing and popular choice. George W. Tipton, a long-time resident and merchant, was Lone Star’s first postmaster.

Before the turn of the century, three or more general stores were open for business including those owned by W.L. Black and G.W. Tipton, J.C. Jones and John J. West, and John McCrimmon. Mollie Smith had a millinery shop. Most of the stores were destroyed by fire in 1893, including a blacksmith shop owned by F. G. Pierce.

J. B. (Bruce) Cleaver, grandfather of Shelley, owned the last blacksmith shop in Lone Star. He added a garage to his business and equipped it with tools acquired from Mack Duty. Cleaver also did some woodworking and horseshoeing in his shop. Shelley’s father repaired cars, mostly Fords, in the Lone Star Repair Shop next door. The sign on the wall read: “We repair automobiles. We fix Fords.”

At one time three denominations supported churches in Lone Star: Methodist, Church of Christ, and Universalist. The Church of Christ and Universalists erected their own buildings. The Methodists and the Baptists not attending nearby Myrtle Springs Church met in the Universalist Church building. When the town went down, all the congregations except the Methodist migrated to Ponta, a new town on the Texas and New Orleans Railroad.

Lone Star had a two-teacher school early in its history, which held classes on the first floor of the Masonic Lodge building. In addition to the public school, the Lone Star Institute, a private school was established by Col. Thomas A. Cache and Rev. Angus M. Stewart in 1889. As recounted by Bernard Mayfield in “Cherokee County History” the school “strongly emphasized cultural accomplishments in music and elocution…. The school attracted broad attention, and many families moved to Lone Star to enroll their children in it. Some of the teachers and music instructors at the institute during its four years of existence were Perry I. Wallace, a Mr. Weaver, and Erma Jones.

By the time Shelley Cleaver was born in Lone Star on December 24, 1934, Lone Star had seen its best days. Shelley was born in Henry Clay Cleaver’s house. At the time of his birth the ancestral home was owned by Bruce Cleaver, his grandfather and occupied by Shelley’s grandparents and his mother and father, Sissy and Curley. Shelley recounts that the family wanted him to be born on Christmas, but his mother wouldn’t put it off any longer and delivered a 12-pound baby on December 24.

Lone Star was a farming community, with cotton the most important cash crop until tomatoes became more profitable. Shelley remembers the T-Model “hoopy” that his father used to haul tomatoes. “He could haul more tomatoes in that hoopy than anyone else in Lone Star,” Shelley remembers. He still owns the turning plow his family used for four generations.

Shelley and his family moved to Jacksonville in 1940, though they retained their ancestral land in Lone Star. The town itself gradually disappeared in the years following World War II.

Today the site of Lone Star, on FM 235 about 4 miles southwest of New Summerfield, is marked with a historical marker erected in 1985. For a map to the exact location, see “Cherokee History Trails,” a free map and brochure describing all the markers in Cherokee County, available from the Historical Commission.