Millwood 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 ...

in Collin County, located in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

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 ...

. According to the

Handbook of Texas The Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) is an American nonprofit educational and research organization dedicated to documenting the history of Texas. It was founded in Austin, Texas, United States, on March 2, 1897. In November 2008, the ...

, the community had a population of 10 in 1986. It is located within the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.

History

The hamlet was founded during the

California gold rush The California gold rush (1848–1855) began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the U ...

when travelers from Texas to

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

were struck with gold fever. Texas had few trading establishments and well-established highways, so the forty-niners bought things wherever possible. The owner of the land where Millwood was later built, Drury Anglin, opened a general store on his farm in response to the growing number of people stopping by to get supplies and food. After a few years, a hamlet was established and given the name Millwood due to a lumber mill that was close to Anglin's property. A post office was founded on May 21, 1851. A church, a flour mill, 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 ...

, and 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 (); ...

were among the businesses in Millwood by 1885 when the town had 100 residents. Nonetheless, the town never again attained the 1885 population level. The St. Louis Southwestern Railway bypassed Millwood, making it impossible to compete with the business and transportation amenities at Wylie, which was close. The mail to Millwood was stopped on December 14, 1907, and was instead sent to Royse City. The number of people living in Millwood decreased throughout the following 30 years. Ten people and one business were present in the village in 1940. These numbers held steady in 1986.

Geography

Millwood is located on the east fork of the Trinity River, east of Wylie and northwest of Royse City in southeastern Collin County.

Education

Millwood had its own school in 1885. Today the community is served by the Community Independent School District. It is zoned for McClendon Elementary School, Leland E. Edge Middle School, and Community High School.

References

Unincorporated communities in Collin County, Texas Unincorporated communities in Texas {{CollinCountyTX-geo-stub