Coon Creek Community

Coon Creek Community. . , The Coon Creek community evolved from the Old Cyrus community, the oldest settlement in southeastern Bosque County. The first settler was Temple Spivey who purchased land on the Brazos River in 1853. In January 1856, John Jackson Smith purchased 1,280 acres of land and sent his son, Burton, to prepare the settlement, Burton Smith died 1856, and John Jackson Smith's son-in-law, Silas McCabe and his wife, Ann Smith, relocated from DeWitt County to the Smith Plantation., In August 1856, School District Four was established and Silas McCabe opened a school in a one-room log cabin on the south side of Coon Creek opposite his home. In 1883, the Cyrus community evolved into two separate communities. The area south of Coon Creek became known as Smith Bend and the area north of the creek as Coon Creek. The two communities share a cemetery established by John Jackson Smith in 1856: the Smith Bend-Coon Creek Cemetery., A new log school was constructed at Crystal Spring on Coon Creek, two miles west of McCabe's School. By 1900, a wooden frame schoolhouse was completed. In 1929, the existing schoolhouse was built. The Coon Creek Methodist Church Episcopal Church, South dates to 1874. In 1887, the Coon Creek Missionary Baptist Church of Christ was established. The existing church was constructed in 1916 and shared by the Methodist and Baptist congregations., The remaining remnants of the Coon Creek community include the 1909 home of William A. Vaughn, a two-story frame home known as the "Pie" Bonds House after Vaughn's son-in-law, Walter Pope "Pie" Bonds. The school, church and historic home in Coon Creek continue to bond the community together. , Marker is property of the State of Texas