Clear Lake is a populated place located in

Collin County, Texas Collin County is a county in the northern part of the U.S. state of Texas. It is part of the Dallas- Fort Worth- Arlington metropolitan statistical area, and a small portion of the city of Dallas is in the county. At the 2020 United States c ...

, United States. According to the

Handbook of Texas The Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) is an American nonprofit educational and research organization dedicated to documenting the history of Texas. It was founded in Austin, Texas, United States, on March 2, 1897. In November 2008, the ...

, the community had a population of 50 in 1990. It is located within the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.

History

distillery Distillation, also classical distillation, is the process of separating the component substances of a liquid mixture of two or more chemically discrete substances; the separation process is realized by way of the selective boiling of the mixt ...

was constructed and run by the

US government The Federal Government of the United States of America (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States. The U.S. federal government is composed of three distinct branches: legislative, execut ...

in 1884 on the shores of adjacent Clear Lake. A few people were drawn to the area by the government project, and by 1890 the town of Clear Lake had been founded. Robert L. Palmer served as the postmaster when the office was established there in 1898, and it closed sometime around 1930. The town was Dallas's main source of bois d'arc timber for a number of years during the city's early years, when Dallas tried paving its streets with the wood. Clear Lake's population shrank significantly after Dallas shelved the project. Despite being in the center of the Blackland Prairie, seasonal flooding in the area around Clear Lake devastated crops. By 1914, Clear Lake had a population of 100, up from an estimated 75 in 1910. Despite the 1954 creation of

Lavon Lake Lavon Lake is a freshwater reservoir located in southeast Collin County, Texas, on the East Fork of the Trinity River near Wylie, off State Highway 78. It is commonly called Lake Lavon for commercial and recreational purposes, but Lavon Lake is ...

, the estimated population of the village went down to fifty from the 1930s to 1990.

Geography

Clear Lake is located near the south shore of Lavon Lake, southeast of

McKinney McKinney is a city in and the county seat of Collin County, Texas, United States. It is Collin County's third-largest city, after Plano, Texas, Plano and Frisco, Texas, Frisco. A suburb of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, McKinney is about ...

in southeastern

Collin County Collin County is a county in the northern part of the U.S. state of Texas. It is part of the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metropolitan statistical area, and a small portion of the city of Dallas is in the county. At the 2020 United States cens ...

. It was also on the

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the largest Class 1 railroads in the United States between 1859 and 1996. The Santa Fe was a pioneer in intermodal freight transport; at vario ...

Education

Today the community is served by the

Princeton Independent School District Princeton Independent School District is a rural public school district based in Princeton, Texas (USA). The district covers , serving not only the city of Princeton but also the surrounding communities of Culleoka, Lowry Crossing, Branch, Cli ...

. It is zoned for Harper Elementary School, Clark Middle School, and Princeton High School.

References

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