Off The Beaten Path - Eureka, TX

[joe817]

EUREKA, TEXAS (Navarro County). Eureka is at the junction of U.S. Highway 287 and Farm roads 637 and 3243, eleven miles southeast of Corsicana in southeastern Navarro County. The settlement developed around a log schoolhouse known as Dunn's School just before the Civil War. In 1870 residents applied for a post office, and at a Grange meeting decided on the name Eureka. That same year a post office was opened in the home of P. Anderson, and within a few years a small town grew up there.

By 1885 Eureka reported several steam gristmills and cotton gins, two churches, a district school, and an estimated population of twenty-five. In 1914 its population was about 100. Three local schools were in operation by 1906—two for white students, with a total enrollment of eighty-five, and one for black students, with an enrollment of sixty-one.

In the mid-1930s Eureka had a school and six businesses. The Eureka school was consolidated with that of Mildred after World War II. The community's population continued to be estimated at about 100 until the mid-1960s, when it was reported as 125. At that time two churches and several businesses still remained at Eureka. In the early 1990s Eureka was a dispersed rural community with an estimated population of 243. In 2000 the population was 340.