How did the word Avoca originate? What is the date for the beginning of this little town on the Katy located in one of the best farming parts of Jones County, often spoken of as the best farming county in West Texas?

Old-timers are Avoca say that present town received its name from Avo, a village located on Spring Creek, more than three miles southwest of Avoca. The name was suggested by a lady when the matter of naming the new town was mentioned, the new name being formed by adding “ca” to the “Avo.”

To get a story of Avoca one must go back to the first settlers about Spring Creek.

E.M. Culwell was born in Tennessee in 1840 but move to Arkansas sometime in the 1850s and after a short sojourn there moved to Texas about the outbreak of the Civil War where he soon volunteered to serve the South in a body of mounted riflemen organized to protect the frontier of Texas from the Indian depredations. Naturally this service enabled him to see much of the unspoiled wilderness in the best part of West Texas; but be that as it may, we find this same young scout eighteen years after Lee’s surrender a man in the prime of life, the father of eight boys and one girl and the owner of a farm in the western part of Wise County, Texas. Finding a sale for this land at a price he considered its full value, he sold it and putting most of the money into cattle, he drove them thru a four-section location on Spring Creek in the newly organized Jones County, arriving in the summer of 1883. His herd at no time exceeded 350 head and his brand was the Diamond Double Cross T Diamond but this artistic ranch trade mark must be seen to be appreciated. For years these cattle were just plain old Texas longhorns but this little ranch in Spring Creek valley was among the first to start grading up to shorthorn Durham and Hereford purebred standards, but for many years the little ranch has been only a memory. One of their nearest neighbors to the north and west was the world-famous Larry Chittenden, cowboy poet and poet ranchman.

Two years after Culwell started his Spring Creek ranch, he found neighbors had become plentiful in a five miles radius and that a school house was badly needed on the creek for both their children and his, so one day he saddled up a gentle horse and hung a “moral” on the saddle horn and started on his canvass. When every “prospect” had been “seen” the leather bag contained in silver, gold, and greenbacks, $146.97 and a few days later the Culwell oxen were yoked to the iron axel shop made wagon and the trip to Abilene to obtain the needed lumber began. Under favorable conditions such a trip might be a delightful diversion from the daily monotonous grind of ranch work, for with a good team and an early start camp could be made on Cedar Creek, just five miles out of Abilene. Next day would be spent in town shopping and loading except for the few hours driving in from and back to the same delightful camping spot. Then if everything went well, the home ranch might be reached on the return trip on the night of the third day out.

One day a rider neatly dressed in a dark suit and hat was seen approaching the Culwell ranch and on being invited to eat supper and to spend the night, he told them that he was J.H. Wiseman, the Methodist preacher lately sent to that circuit and that he would begin a camp meeting in the neighborhood just as soon as a brush arbor could be built at the head of Spring Creek. Help for this work was plentiful and efficient, for it meant that for several weeks there would be a good crowd, good singing, good preaching, and plenty of food cooked for all comers. At the end of this meeting a Methodist Church, now 48 years old, was organized. The first Baptist preacher was Dr. Johnson of Anson who later organized a small church at the new school house but this church was moved to New Hope after a few years. Rev. Cy Black, a Presbyterian minister, for some years had a regular appointment at the little school house.

In 1895, the town of Avo was started near the school house and the handsome church building which the Methodist people had erected there in 1888. This building was courteously opened to the preachers of all Christian churches. Before this town was built the nearest post office was Anson, 15 miles away, its mail coming from Abilene on the Haskell stage line. Avo’s first postmaster was J.N. Pendley, who was also ginner and grocer. Another store was owned by Nettles and Crump. About 1897 came Dr. Dial, the first physician who established a small drug store and Dr. J.H. Grace came in 1898. A.S. Johnson was the first blacksmith and A.R. Clary kept the first hotel.

After the old Central reached Albany in 1881 the railroad ran out of funds for any further western extension and for many years this town was the terminus and distributing point for a vast pastoral region producing millions of dollars’ worth of beef annually and for years was the largest town between Fort Worth and El Paso. In 1900 the Swenson banking house of New York was this road’s heaviest creditor and for some years had owned and operated as a cattle ranch that same road’s large land grant. To better realize on their investment, this firm that same year financed a 40-mile extension of the Central to their own new town of Stamford near the center of the tract and sold the smoothest portion of the ranch to farmer settlers. Seeing the road would miss Avo by three miles, Dr. Dial moved his drug store to the new town of Lueders on the Clear fork to the building now occupied by the Fox Grocery store but the rest of the town moved to the new townsite on the next extension, since known as Avoca.

Soon after the steel reached Avoca a “dinky” locomotive pushed on to the brand-new siding a retired box car with doors and windows lately fitted into it and the gentleman who deftly handled the Morse keys within the queer “office building” told all comers that we was W.D. Knight, the company’s first agent in the new city. In 1902 Mr. H.E. Culwell and his brothers, J.W. Culwell, L.E.Culwell, J.S. Culwell, J.E. Culwell, and Willie Culwell entered the mercantile business in the new town under the firm name of the Slover-Culwell Company, but in 1910 the firm went out of business but J.N. Culwell and H.E. Culwell continued in the drug business and three years later they added a stock of dry goods and groceries. They also owned the first barbershop in Avoca. Mr. Culwell burned out in 1930 and was the last of the old timers to quit business. Dr. Roebuck in 1906 started the Avoca State Bank.

In 1902 the Presbyterians built their first church in Avoca and its first pastor was Rev. J.A. Ward. The Methodist church was built in 1905 and its first pastor was Rev. C.D. West. Some years later the Baptists, led by Rev. Bussey, put up a church there.

The first newspaper ever printed in Avoca was the Avoca Telegram whose first issue loomed above the journalistic horizon on Saturday, October 21, 1908 under the editorial guidance of Mr. Bart Penn and Mr. Bethel, the latter a printer recently employed by the Stamford News.

In 1908 Avoca had reached the highwater mark of 500 population, but of late years drouth, depression, larger nearby towns and the building of new highways and railroads have been a great drawback to Avoca’s growth and present population isn’t far from the 300 which the 1930 census gave it. In all its previous history and that of the mother town Avo, the church, lodge, school, and home have dominated the community to such an extent that no dance has ever occurred in either town,, it is said. No saloon was ever operated there and the Indians were off the war path long before there were many permanent settlers in the county. Camp meetings, Sunday School, literary societies, picnics, play parties, an occasional antelope hunt on the prairie, a turkey, duck or goose hunt on Clear Fork, a trip to the railroad or the regular roundups supplied all the needed diversion so that the early history of Avoca in Jones County contains very little of an exciting or colorful nature.

In 1883 there was not a fence between Spring Creek and Anson, and such roads or trails as were here going straight 15 miles to the county seat and paid no attention to section lines. W.D. McBoyer operated one of the few stores in the town and was postmaster.

Spring Creek Cemetery is all that remains of the original location of Avo.