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History in
a Pecan Shell
The community began
life in 1851 as a stage stop between Houston
and Anderson. It took its name from
Groces's Retreat, the plantation once owned by Jared E. Groce, a member
of Austin's Colony who is said to have brought in the first crop of
cotton in Austin's Colony in 1822.
Retreat used the nearby town of Courtney
for its rail connection on the Houston and Texas Railroad.
After the Civil War, many Black families moved in and began farming.
Storekeeper Joseph Clark was the town's postmaster in the mid 1880s
when Retreat counted seventy-five residents.
The town had its own gin and gristmill as well as a school and church.
The population dropped to just 50 in the 1890s. Black residents built
Pleasant Hill Baptist church in the first years of the 20th Century
and the town remained a farming community. Retreat's nearness to Navasota
curtailed it's growth and over the years, the population drifted away.
The last population estimate in the 1980s reported two families residing
in Retreat, but there was no count after that. |
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| Texas
Escapes, in its purpose to preserve historic, endangered and vanishing
Texas, asks that anyone wishing to share their local history, stories,
landmarks and vintage/historic photos, please contact
us. |
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