Blackland TX · Historic maps
Blooming Grove
The land before the town
Blooming Grove sits on the railroad between the J. Lynn and John Lee grants, with the old surveys of Clark, Cazneau, Darlin and Finch around it. The names are the original land grants, as the General Land Office drew them in 1924. The whole county map →
1900
Population 850
The town's earliest sheet in this set: one page, Bank and Printing on the Main/Fordyce and Second/Third blocks, the Alamo Hotel, a livery, the Baptist, Christian and M.E. churches, the High School, the Pavilion, Blooming Grove Cotton Oil Co. and three cotton gins — Owen Bros. Gin & Grist Mill, Blooming Grove Gin Co., and Wells & Neville Gin. Streets: Fordyce, Hinkley (no c), Kerr, Main, Second, Third.
1905
Population 1,000
Population had grown by a sixth in five years. The S. Fordyce block now carries a Bank and an Office alongside Hardware, Buggies & Harness, two Drug stores and a general store; the Cotton Oil Co. is drawn in full — hull house, seed house, gin. Two hotels stand, the Alamo and the Ivy. The University Training School (Methodist), with a Boys' and a Girls' Dormitory, sits at the foot of S. Fordyce — the direct predecessor of Central Texas College, named on the later sheets.
1910
Population 1,500
The fullest index sheet of the set. The Fire Department: a volunteer company of 25 men, none paid, two hand hose reels and 750 feet of hose, no alarm system, streets not paved. The Home Light, Water & Ice Co. plant, installed 1906: a 50,000-gallon steel tank on a 90-foot trestle, a 70,000-gallon concrete reservoir, eight double hydrants. Central Texas College is named directly — block 75, a Girls' Dormitory and a Kitchen joined by a covered walk. A Bank sits at the corner of the S. Fordyce trades block.
1921
Population 1,799
The richest single page in the set — population peaks at 1,799, and a radius map shows the town's own quarter- and half-mile Post Office rings. Central Texas College's block is now labelled "Formerly Central Texas College Grounds": it closed between 1910 and this edition. Three segregated institutions appear for the first time — a Colored M.E. Church, a Colored Baptist Church and a separate Colored School — distinct from the Public School and the white congregations of the same denominations. Garages marked "Capacity 30 Cars" and "Capacity 40 Cars" show the automobile has reached downtown.
1934
Population 900
A November 1934 correction pass over the 1921 base map. The town had lost well over half its 1921 population by this index. Sheet 2 shows Blooming Grove Fair, Inc. for the first time — a Tabernacle, a Poultry Exhibit, a Stock Exhibit and a Lodge Hall — on the same block as the Bank, Post Office and Fire Department. Sheet 5 names Olive Grove Baptist Church (Colored), settling a naming question the 2005 pictorial history and the live site had disagreed on. Sheet 6 carries the Gillen Bros. buildings. Streets were renumbered this edition, old names kept alongside: Armstrong became 5th, College became 6th, Grady became 7th.
Maps from the Library of Congress, Sanborn Fire Insurance Map Collection. Public domain. Land grant map: Courtesy of the Texas General Land Office, Austin. Map 73249, Navarro County, July 1924. Used under licence.