Elysian Fields is a rural

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 ...

in Harrison County,

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

, United States. It lies 11 miles southeast of the

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

Marshall Marshall may refer to: Places Australia *Marshall, Victoria, a suburb of Geelong, Victoria ** Marshall railway station Canada * Marshall, Saskatchewan * The Marshall, a mountain in British Columbia Liberia * Marshall, Liberia Marshall Is ...

. The community was originally the site of a

Caddo The Caddo people comprise the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma, a federally recognized tribe headquartered in Binger, Oklahoma. They speak the Caddo language. The Caddo Confederacy was a network of Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands, who ...

village named Big Springs. The name of the town is believed to have originated from a dinner conversation in

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

in which Capt. Edward Smith compared its beauty to the Elysian Fields of

Greek Mythology Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...

in 1817. Smith and his family settled in the area in the 1830s. In 1910 the community relocated one mile to the west, so it could be linked to a

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

. The community is now the center of the

Elysian Fields Independent School District Elysian Fields Independent School District is a public school district based in the community of Elysian Fields, Texas ( USA). In addition to Elysian Fields, the district also serves the community of DeBerry as well as rural areas in southea ...

. The school district has an estimated population of 3,917.

References

External links

Elysian Fields Independent School District

Pam Nordstrom, "ELYSIAN FIELDS, TX," Handbook of Texas Online, accessed March 25, 2011. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
Unincorporated communities in Texas Unincorporated communities in Harrison County, Texas {{HarrisonCountyTX-geo-stub