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Joliet ~ ca 1860
The first settler to arrive in the area
later called Joliet was John Henry Lockman in 1851. He bought 153 acres and
built his home close to the banks of West Fork of Plum Creek. With the arrival
of other settlers, Mr. Lockman established a school in his home. In 1878, the
small group of families met in the Sour Springs Hotel (Burditt Wells) and formed
a Baptist Church. Mr. Lockman donated four acres of land, and the Mineral
Springs Baptist Church was built, along with a one-room schoolhouse. Mr. Lockman
then built a gin on his property, and a blacksmith shop was later established.
On the Hughes property, Daisy Hughes, an ex-slave to the Hughes family, built an
excellent syrup mill. Willis Branyon built a store nearby and
established a post office in 1901. He became its first and only postmaster.
However, the post office closed in 1903 and changed to Lockhart. The store
remained open until it was destroyed by fire in 1932. Joliet had a resurgence
during the oil boom of the 1920s. Several more sstores were built along with a
gasoline station. The oil boom declined, the station burned, and the stores
moved away. Today, Joliet is a quiet little community lying at the crossroads of
Farm Roads 671 and 2984. The Baptist Church is still active, and across the road
is a neatly kept little cemetery.
Source - Caldwell County Kin: The First
150 Years published by the Genealogical and Historical Society of Caldwell
County, November 2000.
The Plum Creek Almanac is a project
of The Genealogical and Historical Society of Caldwell County.
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of Caldwell County Copyright © 1963-2015 Updated 05/15/2015 |
