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The sign for
Cozy Corner Road with
the Little Bethel Cemetery in the background
Photo
Courtesy Carolyn
Heinsohn, September 2013
More Texas Signs |
History in
a Pecan Shell
By Carolyn
Heinsohn, Fayette County Historical Commission:
Cozy Corner, located at the intersection of FM Roads 155 and 3233
five miles south of La Grange,
is one of two Freedmen Colonies in Fayette
County, the other being Armstrong
Colony.
Established in the early 1870s by descendants of emancipated slaves
and sharecroppers from Mullins
Prairie, Holman and Ammannsville.
The community first had two designated areas with different names
because of the local topography. The lower area south of “Cozy Corner”
was called “The Prayer”, a dialectal form of “The Prairie”. The wooded
area to the west was called “Post Oak”. The name “Cozy Corner” was
derived from the name of a local café built by Floyd Homer in 1947
and eventually replaced the previous names.
Methodist Episcopal Church South and adjacent cemetery were established
here on 15 acres of land by Anglos for area owners of rural property
in 1855.
Big Bethlehem AME Church founded in 1874 on 14 acres of this land
minus one acre for the old white cemetery. AME cemetery on three sides
of church.
Little Bethel Church was established on Loehr Rd; its cemetery is
at the “Y” of FM 3233 and George Rd. |
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Lane Pool School
established circa 1890; combined with Mullins Prairie Colored School
(Brown School) and another black school on Munke Rd in the late 1940s.
Building then moved next to Little Bethel Cemetery and renamed Hostyn
Colored School; closed in the mid-1960s.
Businesses included the Cozy Corner Café/Beer Joint, that later became
the Mahogany Club; Arthur Dobbins Place in two locations; Zachary’s
Place and now Country Inn, owned by Earline Johnson.
- Carolyn
Heinsohn, FCHC |
Tombstone in
the Big Bethlehem AME Cemetery.
Photo Courtesy Carolyn
Heinsohn, September 2013 |
| Texas
Escapes, in its purpose to preserve historic, endangered and vanishing
Texas, asks that anyone wishing to share their local history, stories,
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