Blackfoot is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

in Anderson County, located in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

. According to the

Handbook of Texas The ''Handbook of Texas'' is a comprehensive encyclopedia of Texas geography, history, and historical persons published by the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). History The original ''Handbook'' was the brainchild of TSHA President Wal ...

, 33 people lived in the community in 2000. It is a part of the

Palestine, Texas Palestine ( ) is a city in and the seat of Anderson County in the U.S. state of Texas. It was named for Palestine, Illinois, by preacher Daniel Parker, who had migrated from that town. The city had a 2020 U.S. census population of 18,544, mak ...

micropolitan area.

History

Primitive Baptist Primitive Baptists – also known as Hard Shell Baptists, Foot Washing Baptists or Old School Baptists – are conservative Baptists adhering to a degree of Calvinist beliefs who coalesced out of the controversy among Baptists in the early 19th c ...

church was located in Blackfoot and was preached by a family member of a resident named

Cynthia Ann Parker Cynthia Ann Parker (October 28, 1827 – March 1871), also known as Naduah (Comanche: ''Narua''), was a white woman who was notable for having been captured during the Fort Parker massacre at about age nine, by a Comanche war band and adopted in ...

. The community's first settlers came from

South Carolina )''Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no) , anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind" , Former = Province of South Carolina , seat = Columbia , LargestCity = Charleston , LargestMetro = ...

and

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

and included Isaac Brown, Abe Hoff, and D.M. Crisp. The community was supposedly named when Uncle Hamp Hanks, Sr., was told that he was in the "Blackfoot nation" when he arrived there in 1870. Friendship Baptist Church was the oldest church in the community, established in 1860. It stood on the line between

Ward Ward may refer to: Division or unit * Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward * Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a pris ...

and Blackfoot. A man named Josh Taylor donated land to the community to build a First Christian church there in 1890, but one was already established a few years earlier. A post office was established at Blackfoot in 1886 and remained in operation until 1907. William U. Stafford was the postmaster and mail was then routed through Montalba after the post office's closure in 1907. The most common

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

raised in Blackfoot were hogs,

corn Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...

cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult mal ...

, and

cotton Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus ''Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor perce ...

. The community's first

cotton gin A cotton gin—meaning "cotton engine"—is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation.. Reprinted by McGraw-Hill, New York and London, 1926 (); a ...

was built around 1880 and both Obe Childress and A.M. Kay operated it for over 60 years. The community then received electricity in 1941 when the REA New Area Co-op was established, and it eventually received telephone service in 1959. A field was uncovered in the area during a strike in the

East Texas Oil Field The East Texas Oil Field is a large oil and gas field in east Texas. Covering and parts of five counties, and having 30,340 historic and active oil wells, it is the second-largest oil field in the United States outside Alaska, and first in tot ...

in 1930 and had wells that continued to produce oil in the late 1950s. In 1935, a

justice of the peace A justice of the peace (JP) is a judicial officer of a lower or ''puisne'' court, elected or appointed by means of a commission ( letters patent) to keep the peace. In past centuries the term commissioner of the peace was often used with the sa ...

courthouse was established in the settlement and was used for precinct court at the start of the 20th century. This building stood on the Isabell farm until a windstorm blew it down in 1973. Before the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

, a total of 40 people lived in Blackfoot. It then decreased to 30 in 1896 and increased dramatically to 200 by 1936. The Friendship Baptist Church, a cemetery, and two dairies were located in Blackfoot in 1988. Its population in both 1990 and 2000 was 33.

Geography

Blackfoot is located 20 miles northwest of

Palestine __NOTOC__ Palestine may refer to: * State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia * Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia * Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...

on Farm to Market Road 860 in the northwestern portion of Anderson County.

Education

Before the

, Blackfoot had a school named The Stillhouse School, and the teacher's name was Mrs. Eilding. Later, in 1942, a two-room school, called the Isabel school, was consolidated with the now-defunct Ward-Blackfoot-Springfield Independent School District. Today the community is served by the

Cayuga Independent School District Cayuga Independent School District is a public school district based in Cayuga, Texas (USA) in unincorporated Anderson County, Texas (USA). In 2009, the school district was rated " recognized" by the Texas Education Agency. Schools Located i ...

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Anderson County, Texas Unincorporated communities in Texas