Grow 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 ...

King County King County is located in the U.S. state of Washington. The population was 2,269,675 in the 2020 census, making it the most populous county in Washington, and the 13th-most populous in the United States. The county seat is Seattle, also the st ...

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. It lies in the north-central part of the county, approximately 85 miles east of

Lubbock Lubbock ( ) is the 10th-most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and the seat of government of Lubbock County. With a population of 260,993 in 2021, the city is also the 85th-most populous in the United States. The city is in the northwe ...

History

In response to the growing number of families settling in the northern part of King County at the start of the 20th century, a school was established in 1901 to serve area students. Ora Blackwell served as the first teacher in the community, which was then known as Bala. Her sister, Mrs. Charles Davidson, was the local

postmaster A postmaster is the head of an individual post office, responsible for all postal activities in a specific post office. When a postmaster is responsible for an entire mail distribution organization (usually sponsored by a national government), ...

; the Bala

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...

was housed in the Davidson family home. Jim Goodwin built a

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 ...

in Bala in 1908, stimulating limited growth. Sometime between 1911 and 1912 the community's name was changed from Bala to Grow. As was the case with all of the other communities in sparsely populated King County, Grow has remained a largely rural community throughout its existence. Its population hovered at 25 or so residents throughout the 1920s and 1930s and though the post office closed in 1930, the population high mark came in 1941 when Grow was reportedly home to an estimated 150 people. However, economic changes led most residents to relocate to urban areas and by the end of the 1950s, almost half of Grow's inhabitants had moved away. By 1970, the Grow school had long since consolidated with Guthrie schools, and local estimates suggested the population had fallen to 85; by 1980 this had fallen to 70, a figure Grow has maintained consistently since.

Education

Grow is served by the

Guthrie Common School District Guthrie Common School District is a public school district based in the community of Guthrie, Texas (USA), in central King County. The school district covers the majority of King County, excepting a portion in the northeast (which instead is in ...

References

Handbook of Texas Online entry for Grow
Unincorporated communities in King County, Texas Unincorporated communities in Texas {{KingCountyTX-geo-stub