Fouke, Texas

A settlement known as Center is thought to have been in the county's southernmost region as early as 1866. Somewhere around 1873, the hamlet's residents erected a log structure that served as their church, lodge, and communal gathering place. For $6, a two-acre plot of land was purchased for a Methodist Episcopal Church in 1879, and eventually, a frame structure was built there. The largely African-American community never had a post office. Sometime about 1885, when George W. Fouke's lumber firm erected a sizable sawmill nearby, the name was changed to Fouke. At the confluence of multiple bladed earth roads, two miles north of U.S. Highway 80, Fouke had a number of residences by the 1930s. There were two churches and a business in the area. Those same two churches and a few widely dispersed homes were in the town by 1960. A dam on Little Sandy Creek created Lake Hawkins sometime after 1960, and by 1981, a number of new homes had sprung up in the community, which supported two churches, two shops, and a community center. The population was thirty in 2000.[2]

Fouke is located on Farm to Market Road 2869, 3 mi (4.8 km) northeast of Crow and less than a mile west of Lake Hawkins in southeastern Wood County.[2]

The first school in Fouke took place in a log building. Only Black children were enrolled in the school, and the church pastor taught classes there. With a small number of White children in the area, they attended subscription schools in either Redland or Hawkins. It then became a school district for blacks in 1884, but there was no account of a school in 1896. There were 111 Black students and 17 White students at the school in 1932.[2] Today, Fouke is served by the Hawkins Independent School District.

• Lillian Richard, actress[3][4]