The Field's Store Community
The Historical Marker
Field's Store Community - Settlers began arriving in this vicinity prior to the Civil War. In the early 1870s Druey Holland Field (1809-72) and his wife Caroline (Perry) (1837-76) opened a general store in the area, and the small agricultural settlement that soon developed became known as Field's Store community. A center of business for the surrounding rural area, the settlement was the site of a school, post office, brick kiln, blacksmith shop, cotton gin and other businesses. Also known as New Hope community, it retains a sense of identity that reflects its early role as the nucleus of pioneer settlement. |
Fields Store, Texas History
Fields (Field's) Store is at the junction of Farm roads 1488 and 362, ten miles northeast of Hempstead in northeast Waller County. It existed as early as 1872 and received its name from Andrew Field and his son Druey Holland Field, the first of several Field family members to operate a general store in the area. By 1874 the community had a post office called Field's Store operated by Isaac Newton Jones, Druey's son-in-law. In 1895 the post office dropped the apostrophe from the name. Thirty residents lived in the community during the 1880s; in the next decade the town had a population of 150, three general stores, at least one church, and a physician. In 1905 Fields Store School enrolled 179 students who were instructed by four teachers. A local Masonic lodge existed during the same period, and by 1907 a Woodman of the World chapter had received its charter. A cotton gin also served local farmers.
Fields Store declined when the neighboring communities of Myrtle Grove and Joseph developed gins and opened post offices. The Fields Store post office closed in 1909, and most residents began receiving mail from Waller. During the 1930s sixty-nine students attended primary school at Fields Store; high school students rode the bus to Waller. In 1953 the Fields Store school was consolidated with the Waller schools, where area children still attended school in 1990. The old Fields Store school building, completed in 1923, served as the Fields Store Community House in 1990. Pleasant Hill Masonic Lodge No. 380 still met at the meeting hall in Fields Store, and an active cemetery association continued to raise money from July 4 picnics and an annual rodeo. The picnics served as community reunions. New Hope United Methodist Church continued to hold services in 1973. The Texas Historical Commissionqv has placed markers at the site of the old store and at the cemetery.
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