Hickory Hill history

One drawback in picturing the Bear Creek Fire in Cass County has been its location and history. Just where is Bear Creek and this community?

A brief history and map is part of the history of Hickory Hill written by the late Fred McKenzie.He writes that an early settler killed a bear on the upper reaches of a small stream near Avinger that emptied into Black Cypress Bayou at Barnes Lake. The stream and the community that developed around it became known as Bear Creek.

The community was located around its church and both old and new cemeteries. The first burying ground is at the intersection of County Road 1626 and the Liberty- Lacy Bridge road now known as CR 1617.

The newer community cemetery is next to the Bear Creek Baptist Church established in the late 1800s. Across the road from the Baptist church is the foundation of the Bear Creek School built in the 1920s which had first through 10th grades. It was a four room, one story brick building modern for its day.

Some of its teachers were D. L. Hatcher and Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Wood Sr. The high school consolidated with Avinger in the 1940s and the grade school followed in the 1950s. The proud red brick building was torn down in the late 1950s.

Bear Creek itself began with the Throckmorton place. This Mr. Throckmorton was the grandson of Texas Governor James W. Throckmorton (1866-1867).

Going east toward Linden was the Tom Glover place.

Others along the road were T. N. Summerlin, E. N. Wilson, Will A. Lane, C.E. Clark, T. W. Williams, Joe R. Hedges and Wyman Hayes.

Other residents of the community were J. B. Neese, L. E. Kessler and Tom Dalrymple on the road going to Cave Springs. Families of Brown, Fletcher and Thompson were on the Lacy Bridge Road.

Bear Creek is one of several satellite rural communities of Avinger. Others were Mims Chapel, Liberty Hill, Violet Hill, Alley Mills and Turkey Creek.