Gholson, Benjamin F.

1860

(Nov. 17, 1842-April 3, 1932) Born in Falls County. Son of early Texas settlers Albert G. and Elidia Anderson Gholson. After 1858-1859 service with Texas Rangers, he re-enlisted in company under Capt. J. M. Smith, and in 1860 aided in the rescue of Cynthia Ann Parker, kidnapped by Comanche Indians in 1836. Served in 2nd Regiment, Texas Cavalry in Civil War. Married Jane Adaline Langford. Prominent stockman, was active in the Texas Ex-Rangers Association.

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Evant

1855

The town of Evant traces its history to an earlier settlement in this area. Langford Cove, founded in 1855 by Asa Langford (1820-1870), was located adjacent to and partly within the south boundary of the present town of Evant. A United States Post Office was authorized in 1876 under the name Cove. Evan T. Brooks and his family arrived in the area in 1876. In 1881 Brooks platted a townsite which was filed in Hamilton County records as Brooksville. The same plat appeared in Coryell County records in 1884 as Evant, so named from a combination of Brooks' first name and middle initial. Streets and blocks were carefully planned, including a town square. The Cove post office was transferred to Evant and renamed in 1885. In 1878 a one-room plank schoolhouse was erected on land donated by Asa Langford in 1875. It was replaced in 1888 by a stone structure which, with additions and modifications, served Evant Independent School District until 1976. Over the years, businesses were established and churches and community groups were organized. The citizens of Evant voted to incorporate in an election held in December 1976. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986

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First United Methodist Church of Evant

1874

Organized by the Rev. Joe Price between 1874 and 1876, in Langford's Cove community (later renamed Evant), the Evant Methodist Episcopal Church began with seven charter members: Mr. and Mrs. W.C. Winters, Mr. and Mrs. G.T. Winters, Mr. and Mrs. Edington, and Miss Elam. After a short time, the Rev. Mr. Price returned to his home in Mississippi. The congregation continued to hold prayer meetings led by W.C. Winters and occasional visiting pastors, including M.M. Weaver and W.H. Carr of nearby Levita, the Rev. Dr. Perry of Hamilton, the Rev. Bill Davenport and the Rev. Osgood Shook. First meeting in members' homes and under brush arbors, they eventually began to hold prayer meetings in the small local schoolhouse. In the spring of 1879 a camp meeting was held at Cottonwood Springs. New families began moving into the area, including the Murehead family from Rhode Island and the Thomas family from Wales, Great Britain. They began a Sunday school and invited area young people to join them in Methodist worship. As they grew in numbers, they joined the Methodist church. In 1884, the Baptists built the first church building in the community. The Methodists shared the structure with other denominations until 1905, when they erected their own building. It was moved across the street in 1937 due to highway development. The Methodist Church in the nearby Vista community joined with Evant Methodist in 1949 and they dedicated a new brick building that year in a ceremony led by the presiding bishop. The congregation's growth reached its 20th century peak in 1963 with 201 members. The Evant United Methodist Church continues in the traditions of its founders. (2000)

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Hamilton - 2025 Texas 2A Division I state football champion

2025

Hamilton defeated Joaquin 21-7 for the 2025 Texas 2A Division I state football championship.

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Moore, Billy [Tiny]

1937

Billy "Tiny" Moore, mandolinist and fiddler, was born on May 12, 1920, in Hamilton County, Texas. Moore's mother and grandfather taught him piano, fiddle, and guitar during his childhood. As an adolescent he backed his mother in her band and played with a group of friends known as the Clod Hoppers. After hearing Leo Raley play one of the first electric mandolins, Moore adopted the instrument. His first electric mandolin was built by Raymond Jones, a friend who lived in Port Arthur, Texas. Given the nickname “Tiny” because of his large size, Moore performed professionally with a group called the Port Arthur Jubileers. Beginning in 1937, Moore traveled the South and played mandolin in several bands. In Mobile, Alabama, he played in Lloyd Ellis's Jazz Trio, and in Rayne, Louisiana, he accompanied a Cajun band called the Rainbow Ramblers. He moved to Houston before 1943 and played in the Crustene Ranch Gang band, which regularly appeared on local radio stations. Moore enlisted in the United States Army Air Force and served from 1943 to 1945. After the war he joined western swing legend Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys. In 1946 and 1947 Wills and the Playboys recorded the Tiffany Transcriptions , in which Moore played electric mandolin and fiddle, and for which he arranged the music. He also managed the Wills Point Ballroom in Sacramento, California, which was owned by Bob Wills. In 1950 Moore took a break from performing with Wills's traveling band and married Dean McKinney (of the McKinney Sisters), another member of the Wills band. They had three children. After his departure from the Texas Playboys, Moore settled in the Sacramento area and formed a western swing band with Bob's younger brother, Billy Jack Wills. The band played regularly at the Wills Point Ballroom and on local radio station KFRK. Moore arranged most of the music and played fiddle and his newly-built Bigsby five-string electric mandolin. Billy Jack played drums, and a young Vance Terry played steel guitar in the ensemble. In 1954 the band broke up, but Moore continued to play with Bob and Billy Jack Wills at local venues throughout the decade. From 1956 to 1962 he also hosted and regularly performed on Ranger Roy and the Anna Banana Show , a locally televised children's program. In 1961 Moore opened the Tiny Moore Music Center, where he gave lessons on mandolin, fiddle, and guitar. He focused on teaching throughout much of the 1960s and wrote an instructional book called Mandolin Method . Moore played as a guest musician on numerous albums and was a member of Merle Haggard's band in the mid-1970s. In 1970 he recorded with Haggard on the album Tribute to the Best Damn Fiddle Player in the World , a salute to Bob Wills. In 1972 Moore recorded his first solo album, Tiny Moore Music . He regularly played with former members of the Playboys, such as Eldon Shamblin and Vance Terry, and frequently performed at music contests. In 1973 he played on Bob Wills's final recording, For the Last Time . Moore paired with fellow mandolinist Jethro Burns (of Homer and Jethro fame) and recorded a twin mandolin album called Back to Back in 1980. Throughout Moore's career, jazz musicians heavily influenced him, especially the early work of legendary Texas jazz guitarist Charlie Christian . Moore taught dozens of guitarists and was a major influence on musicians such as Ken Fraizer and Bob Murrell. He frequented nightclubs from Texas to California to stay in touch with the jazz music scene. He had a fatal heart attack onstage while playing with the Cadillac Band at a club in Jackpot, Nevada, on December 15, 1987. He was inducted into the Texas Western Swing Hall of Fame in 1995 along with his wife Dean McKinney Moore. In 1999 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, honored as an early influence on the rock genre. Moore is also listed as a Music Legend in the Museum of the Gulf Coast’s Music Hall of Fame in Port Arthur. The

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Hamilton County

1854

Hamilton County, in Central Texas, is bounded on the north by Comanche, Erath, and Johnson counties, on the west by Mills County, and on the south by Lampasas and Coryell counties. Its center lies at 31°47' north latitude and 98°13' west longitude, 114 miles north of Austin. The county was named for James Hamilton , a South Carolina governor who invested some $216,000 in gold to finance the Texas struggle for independence from Mexico. It covers 844 square miles wooded with pecan, live oak, elm, cedar, and post oak. Soils range from the sandy loams and sands and the dark, limy, crumbly, clays of the prairie, to the rich alluvial bottoms of the river valleys. The elevation of the county ranges between 900 and 1,600 feet above sea level. Except for the northwestern part, which lies in the Western Cross Timbers region, the county is rolling prairie marked by numerous flat-topped buttes that rise abruptly to stand on the divides between the county's many streams. The county is drained by the Leon, Lampasas, and Bosque rivers. Many of its deep, wide stream valleys are bordered by limestone cliffs that abut the intervening flat divides. The average annual rainfall is 29.61 inches; the average minimum temperature in January is 34° F, and the average maximum in July is 96°. The growing season lasts 239 days. The agriculture of the local economy earns about $31 million yearly, 90 percent of which derives from cattle, hogs, sheep, goats, and poultry. Crops include sorghums, small grains, cotton, hay, and pecans; irrigated land totals about 5,000 acres. The county's agribusiness also includes more than forty dairies. The manufacture of garments, wooden molding, steel products, and other goods earns the county about $5 million annually. Hamilton County has limited and declining oil production; production was about 5,000 barrels in 1982 and 2,067 in 1990. Major roads include U.S Highway 281 (north to south) and State highways 36 (northwest to southeast) and 22 (east to west). Though the extent of prehistoric settlement in the area that is now Hamilton County is unclear, at least five Indian burial mounds have been found on the banks of Cowhouse Creek, about 3½ miles from Pottsville. Waco and Tawakoni Indians lived on the Brazos and Trinity rivers some sixty miles to the east and northeast; they traded with the Tonkawas, a nomadic tribe that moved around Central Texas. Comanches also traveled through the Hamilton County area. The first permanent White settlers in the area were probably Robert Carter and his family, who arrived in 1854. By 1855 a number of others, including James Rice, Henry Standefer, Frederic Bookerman, William Beauchamp, and Asa Langford had settled there. Rice and Standefer opened a store that soon developed into the town of Hamilton; meanwhile, Langford built a sawmill, a blacksmith shop, a store, and a gristmill to form a settlement that came to be known as Langford's Cove (present-day Evant). Population grew rather rapidly, and in 1856 settlers circulated a petition asking that a new county be formed to accommodate their needs. Later that year the Texas legislature approved the request and marked off Hamilton County from land previously assigned to Comanche, Bosque, and Lampasas counties. Two years later a five-man commission selected the town of Hamilton to be the county seat. By 1860, when the county's first post office was established at the hamlet of Hico, the county included several small but well-established communities; that year the census found 489 residents. Geography helped to determine the pattern of settlement, as pioneers built along the wooded streams that crossed the rolling prairie, leaving the intervening divides to remain open range. According to the 1860 agricultural census only 290 acres of the county's 1,800 acres of farmland was improved; the wheat harvest was about 1,050 bushels that year, and corn production was 1,900 bushels. Though most of the county's early residents e

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Evant, Texas

Music in Evant

Songs About Evant

Artists From Evant

Rivers & Roads in Song near Evant

History of Evant

Gholson, Benjamin F.

Evant

First United Methodist Church of Evant

Hamilton - 2025 Texas 2A Division I state football champion

Moore, Billy [Tiny]

Hamilton County

Things to Do in Evant

Everything Near Evant