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Douglas is near Hope Pond, eleven miles east of Tyler and one mile south
of State Highway 31 in eastern Smith County. The site was originally part
of the Barns Clark survey; the Old Mound Indian Trail, or the old
Jamestown-Tyler road, ran through the area.
Maps for 1936 showed four school buildings and one nearby dwelling.
That year the Douglas school employed five teachers and enrolled 130 black
students in grades one through eleven. The community also contained
sparsely scattered farms and a cemetery.
1952 the Douglas school, along with other local rural schools, had been
consolidated into the Arp Independent School District. In 1966 the
community comprised one abandoned business, a church, and a number of
dwellings scattered along dirt roads south of State Highway 31.
1973 only a cluster of farms and a grain elevator remained. Douglas was
still identified on maps in 1981.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Edward Clayton Curry, An Administrative Survey of the
Schools of Smith County, Texas (M.Ed. thesis, University of Texas, 1938).
Smith County Historical Society, Historical Atlas of Smith County
(Tyler, Texas: Tyler Print Shop, 1965).
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