Bulcher, Texas
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Bulcher is a small,
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 far northwestern
Cooke County Cooke County is a county in the U.S. state of Texas. At the 2020 census, its population was 41,668. The county seat is Gainesville. The county was founded in 1848 and organized the next year. It is named for William Gordon Cooke, a soldier du ...
,
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 ...
, United States, approximately south of the
Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...
border.


History

Bulcher was founded in the spring of 1872 when John A. Davis moved his family into the area. The threat of Indian raids had dwindled and the vicinity offered a voluminous amount of cheap, fertile farm land laid out just south of the Red River. It did not take long for others to follow the lead of the Davises. The population shot up to 250 by the end of a decade and a school house was established along with a handful of other businesses. Postmaster Matthew A. Morris founded the post office in 1874 and settler William H. Cox built a cotton gin in 1875. The census remained on a slight downward slide from 1887 into the 1900s due to the bypass of the railway 10 miles south of town, until the village enjoyed a small oil boom in the summer of 1926. The community was briefly rejuvenated by the discovery, but the well had run dry by the early 1930s and only 40 residents resided in Bulcher in the year 1933. The population remained roughly unchanged for the next fifty years until the last of the town's citizens began to migrate in the late 1980s, leaving the site with no permanent residents for much of the 1990s and early 2000s. Today, just six people remain. Today, it is a popular area for self-guided foliage tours, as well as home to a 2500-acre (10 km) off-road motorcycle park popular with riders from all over the United States. The park is host to the annual Last Man Standing rough-terrain motorcycle race. Almost all of the vacated buildings have been completely destroyed due to vandalism and just a broken down church remains along with the old abandoned Valley Creek school house hidden in the woodlands two miles east of town. Unincorporated communities in Texas Unincorporated communities in Cooke County, Texas {{CookeCountyTX-geo-stub