Owensville is a former community in Robertson 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. Owensville was located on Farm to Market Road 46, five miles northwest of Franklin.

History

Owensville was chosen as the site of Robertson County's

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 ...

in 1855, and county records were moved from Wheelock to the courthouse in Owensville in 1856. County officials named Owensville after Harrison Owen, the first county clerk of Robertson County. A post office opened in Owensville along with the courthouse in 1856. Owensville quickly expanded and was the county seat through 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 ...

, but railroads in the region bypassed the community. During

Reconstruction Reconstruction may refer to: Politics, history, and sociology *Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company *''Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Union ...

, county judge I.B. Ellison declared Calvert the new county seat, and county records were moved from Owensville to Calvert in 1870. After Owensville lost the county seat, it rapidly declined. The post office closed in 1872, though it briefly reopened from 1895 to 1897. By 1990, all that remained in Owensville was a cemetery.

References

Geography of Robertson County, Texas Ghost towns in East Texas {{RobertsonCountyTX-geo-stub