Shiloh is a small unincorporated farming community on Shiloh Road near

White Oak ''Quercus'' subgenus ''Quercus'' is one of the two subgenera into which the genus ''Quercus'' was divided in a 2017 classification (the other being subgenus ''Cerris''). It contains about 190 species divided among five sections. It may be calle ...

in north central Gregg 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. Located just south of the Upshur County line, Shiloh was established by formerly enslaved

African Americans African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa ...

just after the end 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 ...

Early history

The area around Shiloh was a part of Mexico after

Mexican Independence The Mexican War of Independence (, 16 September 1810 – 27 September 1821) was an armed conflict and political process resulting in Mexico's independence from the Spanish Empire. It was not a single, coherent event, but local and regional ...

in 1821. Many

Cherokee The Cherokee (; , or ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern ...

families passed through the region during the following decade, having been pushed further west out of their original lands. The Cherokees were forced out of the region by 1839 as many

Anglo-Americans Anglo-Americans are a demographic group in Anglo-America. It typically refers to the predominantly European-descent nations and ethnic groups in the Americas that speak English as a native language, making up the majority of people in the world ...

arrived in the area as well as some African Americans, some of them enslaved. Through the mid-1800s, the region's main economic activity was cotton farming, and the lumber industry grew after the 1860s.

Establishment

Shiloh was one of a number of Black communities to be settled in the county in the

Reconstruction era The Reconstruction era was a period in History of the United States, US history that followed the American Civil War (1861-65) and was dominated by the legal, social, and political challenges of the Abolitionism in the United States, abol ...

. According to local tradition, a formerly enslaved man, Butcher Christian, his former enslaver, Gideon Christian, and a noted post-Civil War church organizer, the Reverend John Baptist, established the Shiloh Baptist Church in 1871. Services began in a log sanctuary located on donated by Butcher Christian. Gideon Christian, originally from South Carolina, had held thirty-two people enslaved in the area prior to the Civil War. According to the oral histories of local families, the Christian family conveyed land titles to a number of the emancipated people they had formerly held enslaved. Adjacent to the Baptist Church is an active cemetery with marked graves dating to 1882. The First Presbyterian Church was organized in Shiloh, Gregg County, Texas in 1838, but relocated to Clarksville in 1844. Shortly after the end of the Civil War, the newly free Black community established a one-room school in Shiloh that operated until the school was destroyed in a major storm in the 1890s. Classes were held in the Shiloh Baptist Church. With funding from the Rosenwald rural school building program, which helped Black communities build schools across the

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, the Shiloh community built a new two-room school erected in 1920.

Oil Boom Growth and Decline

Beginning in the 1930s, an oil boom was the major driver of Gregg County's economy and population growth. Revenue from oil discovered on the Shiloh Baptist Church land was used to build a new sanctuary on the site in 1936. In 1933, the community built a new brick school with an auditorium and separate junior high school wing. The school expanded to include high school in 1937. By the 1960s, oil was the dominant industry of the region, and few farms remained. Shiloh School closed in 1966, when area schools were

desegregated Desegregation is the process of ending the separation of two groups, usually referring to races. Desegregation is typically measured by the index of dissimilarity, allowing researchers to determine whether desegregation efforts are having impact o ...

and children from Shiloh enrolled in White Oak Independent School District. The school building was later used for chemical storage until it was damaged in a 1993 chemical fire, possibly a result of arson. The building, on Shiloh Road, is marked by a historical plaque. Shiloh Baptist Church still serves the community with a variety of programs. Shiloh's population declined after World War II. By the 1990s, the church and some of the early settling families remained, but much of the population had moved away.

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Gregg County, Texas Unincorporated communities in Texas