Etna is a

ghost town A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...

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

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 is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, 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.J ...

. 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 grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist is grain that h ...

, 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