Brashear, Texas

Brashear sits in west-central Hopkins County, named for Joseph Brashear, the surveyor who platted the townsite. The land here was part of the Wise Ranch until eighteen ninety-eight, when a businessman named G. W.

Mahoney bought the spread, divided it into small farms, laid out the streets, and donated lots for a school, a church, and a cemetery. A post office opened in eighteen ninety-nine. By nineteen fourteen the town had three denominations of church, a bank, a local newspaper, a telegraph line, and four hundred residents.

A cotton gin anchored the local economy through the mid-twentieth century. The commercial core from those early decades still stands, a compact block of brick storefronts that earned recognition as a historic district.