KOSSE, TEXAS

Limestone County, Central Texas North

31°18'27"N 96°37'49"W (31.307452, -96.630267)

Highway 14 and 7 near the Falls County Line
17 miles S of Groesbeck the county seat
42 miles SE of Waco
52 miles N of Bryan / College Station
16 miles E of Marlin
40 miles W of Centerville
Population: 465 (2010) 497 (2000) 505 (1990)

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Big Elm Creek Bridge on CR159 NW of Kosse
Photo courtesy Barclay Gibson, August 2006
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History in a Pecan Shell

Kosse was named for Theodore Kosse, chief engineer for the Houston and Texas Central railroad. Kosse also surveyed the town when the railroad arrived in 1869.

In the 1840s, long before the railroad arrived, the town of Eutaw was two miles west of present day Kosse near Duck Creek. Eutaw was connected to the outside world (Franklin, Marlin and Waco) by stageline. With the arrival of the railroad, businesses moved to Kosse from Eutaw and even the post office relocated in 1870.

In 1871, now that they were distinctly a town proper, a town government was installed. In 1880 there were 500 Kosseans (Kossites? Kossacks?) - a respectible population for a town that still had the bloom of youth. The town not only had the railroad, but a newspaper as well.

By 1885, Kosse was thriving with two sawmills, three gristmills, and several cotton gins. Kosse also had the first brickworks in the county, a boon enterprise since it brought in cash from smaller towns needing brick. The clay deposits were such that they caught the eye of an Englishman who opened a ceramics works in 1870.

Land was donated for a school by 1884, and by 1892-93 Kosse became an ISD with two schools. By 1914 the town was only up to 700 people, but it more than doubled by 1928. The 1,500 people enumerated that year marked the town's high-water mark.

The decline began predicably with the onset of the Great Depression and eventually Kosse schools consolidated with the Groesbeck ISD.

First Methodist Church
Photo courtesy Barclay Gibson, August 2005

First Baptist Church
Photo courtesy Barclay Gibson, June 2005

Ebenezer Church East of Kosse
Photo courtesy Barclay Gibson, June 2005
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Photo courtesy Barclay Gibson, August 2005

Native Son

Bob Wills The Greatest Fiddle-Player of Them All by C. F. Eckhardt

Kosse Texas water tower and church steeple

Church steeple and Water tower in Kosse

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TE Photo June 2001

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