Moscow 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 ...

Polk County, Texas Polk County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 50,123. Its county seat is Livingston. The county is named after President James K. Polk. The Alabama-Coushatta Indian Reservation of the f ...

, United States. As of the 2000 United States Census, the community had about 170 residents.

Geography

Moscow is at the junction of U.S. Highway 59 and Farm to Market Road 350, 90 miles north of

Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

in central Polk County.

History

David and Matilda Green first settled the area in the 1840s. The first

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

was established in 1847 under Green's name. The community's name was changed to Moscow, after

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

, Russia, in 1853, as the postal authorities deemed the proposed name of Greenville as being too similar to Greensboro, Texas. The First Baptist Church was established in 1849. Moscow became a trading center for Polk County

farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer ...

s during the latter 1850s and a stage stop on the Liberty-Nacogdoches Road, with

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 (); ...

s, shops, saloons, and a

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a re ...

. The town was noted for its school, the Moscow Masonic Academy (or Moscow Masonic High School, depending on source). Built in 1853 as the Moscow Masonic Male and Female Academy, the institution served the community under its latter name from 1857. Future Texas Governor William P. Hobby attended the school. The school burned down around 1935. The Houston, East and West Texas Railway reached the town in 1880 followed by the seven-mile-long Moscow, Camden and San Augustine Railroad in 1899, one of the shortest railroads in Texas. A

mule The mule is a domestic equine hybrid between a donkey, and a horse. It is the offspring of a male donkey (a jack) and a female horse (a mare). The horse and the donkey are different species, with different numbers of chromosomes; of the two ...

-drawn

streetcar A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some include s ...

line linked the

train station A train station, railroad station, or railway station is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight, or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track, and a station building providing suc ...

with the business district.

Sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logging, logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes ...

s in Moscow supported the burgeoning

logging Logging is the process of cutting, processing, and moving trees to a location for transport. It may include skidder, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or trunk (botany), logs onto logging truck, truckscannery Canning is a method of food preservation in which food is processed and sealed in an airtight container ( jars like Mason jars, and steel and tin cans). Canning provides a shelf life that typically ranges from one to five years, although unde ...

for vegetables and fruit and a column factory (making architectural columns) were early industries in the town that helped diversify Moscow's economy. In 1880, with an estimated 228 residents, Moscow was the largest town in Polk County. By 1900, its population had reached 263. By the 1920s, the

lumber Lumber is wood that has been processed into uniform and useful sizes (dimensional lumber), including beams and planks or boards. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, window frames). ...

supply in

East Texas East Texas is a broadly defined cultural, geographic, and ecological region in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Texas that consists of approximately 38 counties. It is roughly divided into Northeast Texas, Northeast, Southeast Texas, Sout ...

began to dwindle due to

overharvesting Overexploitation, also called overharvesting or ecological overshoot, refers to harvesting a renewable resource to the point of diminishing returns. Continued overexploitation can lead to the destruction of the resource, as it will be unable to ...

. During 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 ...

, many farmers went

bankrupt Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the de ...

and lumber companies left the area due to the economic conditions. With the decline of logging and

agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

, Moscow's population began to decline, also, and per the 2000 census, the population was 170.

Education

Moscow is served by Corrigan-Camden Independent School District.

Notable person

* William P. Hobby, publisher of the ''

Houston Post The ''Houston Post'' was a newspaper that had its headquarters in Houston, Texas, United States. In 1995, the newspaper shut down, and its assets were purchased by the ''Houston Chronicle''. History Gail Borden Johnson founded the ''Houston P ...

'' and the 27th governor of Texas from 1917 to 1921.

References

External links

* Unincorporated communities in Texas Unincorporated communities in Polk County, Texas {{PolkCountyTX-geo-stub