Etna is a

ghost town Ghost Town(s) or Ghosttown may refer to: * Ghost town, a town that has been abandoned Film and television * Ghost Town (1936 film), ''Ghost Town'' (1936 film), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser * Ghost Town (1956 film), ''Ghost Town'' ...

that was located near the site of present-day Bullard in northwestern

Cherokee County Cherokee County is the name of eight counties in the United States: * Cherokee County, Alabama * Cherokee County, Georgia * Cherokee County, Iowa * Cherokee County, Kansas * Cherokee County, North Carolina * Cherokee County, Oklahoma * Cherokee Co ...

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.

History

Etna was first settled by immigrants from the

Old South Geographically, the U.S. states known as the Old South are those in the Southern United States that were among the original Thirteen Colonies. The region term is differentiated from the Deep South and Upper South. From a cultural and social s ...

around the time of 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 local post office was established in 1867 and by the early 1880s the town possessed a dry good store, a district school, a church, a

gristmill A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and Wheat middlings, middlings. The term can refer to either the Mill (grinding), grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist i ...

, a blacksmith, and several general stores. The settlement began to decline by the mid-1880s after the Kansas and Gulf Short Line Railroad bypassed Etna. Most of the residents and businesses move to Bullard and the post office closed in 1883. By 1900, Etna was a

.Long, Christopher
Etna, Texas
Handbook of Texas Online, University of Texas at Austin.

References

Geography of Cherokee County, Texas Ghost towns in East Texas {{CherokeeCountyTX-geo-stub