Bono is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

Johnson County, Texas Johnson County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 179,927. Its county seat is Cleburne. Johnson County is named for Colonel Middleton Tate Johnson Sr., a Texas Ranger, politician and so ...

, United States. Located on Farm to Market Road 2331 in the southwestern portion of the county, Bono is one mile west of U.S. Highway 67.

History

The area was first settled in the early 1870s by two families (one of Calvin L. Jones and one of B.H. Williamson), who each donated 20 acres for a townsite. Sixteen acres were set aside for a church and school site, and the rest was free for individuals to build homes. Families were attracted to the area because of the church and school and the community, named Bono by Jones, established a post office in 1879. A tornado struck the town on May 4, 1890, destroying homes and killing several people. The population reached 75 by 1900 and continued to thrive until the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

, unusual compared to other settlements that were bypassed by the railroad in the area. The settlement had 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 (); ...

, two stores, two churches, and a school. The 1940s saw a decline in population, as the number of area farmers decreased as the region moved on from

cotton production Cotton (), first recorded in ancient India, 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 ce ...

and switched to

dairy production A dairy is a place where milk is stored and where butter, cheese, and other dairy products are made, or a place where those products are sold. It may be a room, a building, or a larger establishment. In the United States, the word may also des ...

. The post office closed during this time, although a community building and

Baptist Baptists are a Christian denomination, denomination within Protestant Christianity distinguished by baptizing only professing Christian believers (believer's baptism) and doing so by complete Immersion baptism, immersion. Baptist churches ge ...

church remained in the area in 1971 and a state map noted the presence of a small cemetery in 1984.

References

Unincorporated communities in Johnson County, Texas Unincorporated communities in Texas Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex {{JohnsonCountyTX-geo-stub