Elizabethtown, Texas

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Elizabethtown, Texas, once known as Bugtown, was a town located about fifteen miles southwest of Denton in Denton County.

1 History
2 Prominent residents
3 Decline
4 Notes

[edit] History

The town site was located in the southwest corner of Shamblen Survey. Its first residents, members of the Peters Colony arrived circa 1850. Elizabethtown served a supply station in 1852, mostly for cowboys driving their herds to Kansas. The town founders, the Harmonsons, constructed a church, homes, a business, and a school. At its height the school had 25 students. In 1859 the town had six saloons, a hotel and a post office, a staple of all true towns. According to residents of nearby Justin, Texas, Elizabethtown was once known as Bugtown because one night bugs had swarmed in on a church camp meeting and arrived in such great numbers that it caused the preaching to be stopped.

During the Civil War the frontier in and west of Denton County remained undefended against Indian raids, many families moved east during this time period. Later, though, many did return. As the town grew it gained four general stores, another hotel and a livery stable, along with Baptist and Methodist churches, and a Masonic lodge that operated from 1873 to 1876.^[1]

[edit] Prominent residents

George Harper: doctor and postmaster
M.H. Smith: blacksmith
Newton Chance: blacksmith
Amos Bullard: blacksmith
Sewell Brown: merchant
James Snyder: wagonmaker
Robert Wright: carpenter..^[2]

[edit] Decline

The last Denton County taxroll that Elizabethtown appears on is the 1880 roll. The Texas and Pacific Railway, which was built in 1881 from Fort Worth through Denton County, bypassed Elizabethtown by just two miles. Due to this many residents moved two miles to the east to the newly established town of Roanoke, along with their businesses, churches and the Masonic lodge. The only remains of the first town in southwest Denton County are in the form of the Elizabeth Cemetery, which is still in use today.^[3]