FOUKE GEOGRAPHY

James Fouke was father, among others, of "Arkansas" George Fouke, who gave the name to Fouke, Ark., near Texarkana; also Fouke, MS and Fouke, TX. These were vast timbered land holdings to feed the family sawmill business

HISTORY OF FOUKE, ARKANSAS

Source: Monograph of one of the residents of Fouke, AR

"In 1883 and 84, Elder J. F. Shaw and eleven other members withdrew from the Texarkana Baptist Church and organized into the Texarkana Seventh Day Baptist Church. In 1890 Elder Shaw bought one square mile of land from the Gate City Lumber Company owned by Geo. W. Fouke and the Haydon Family. Elder Shaw mapped out the town and named the streets. From the records in the Miller Co., Courthouse, we find that, 'the Shaws, the J. E, Snells and George W. Fouke in all agreement named the place Fouke." The centennial celebration of Fouke, AR was held in 1991.

HISTORY OF FOUKE MISSISSIPPI

"Located five miles northwest of Paulding, Fouke was a mill town in 1917 at the arrival of the Gilcrist-Fordney Lumber Company. The town was located at the termination of the M & W Railroad, which was built by the company for temporary use. The place was listed among the extinct towns in1930."

HISTORY OF FOUKE TEXAS

Source: Rachel Jenkins, The Handbook of Texas Online, Fouke, Texas from Wood County, 1850 - 1900 (Quitman, Texas: Wood County Historical Society, 1976)

FOUKE, TEXAS. Fouke is on Farm Road 2869 three miles northeast of Crow and less than a mile west of Lake Hawkins in southeast Wood County. A community called Center was said to exist in the southern part of the county as early as 1866, and sometime around 1873 the inhabitants built a log building, which was used for church, school, lodge and community meetings. In 1879 a two-acre sit e for a Methodist Episcopal Church was bought for six dollars, and a frame building was eventually constructed. At that time the pastor usually also taught the school, which was attended by black children only. The community's few white children went to subscription schools in Redland or Hawkins. A Center school system for blacks was established when Wood County was divided into school districts in 1884, though by 1886, no records for that school exist. The predominantly black community never had a post office. The name was changed to Fouke sometime after 1885, when George W. Fouke's lumber company built a large sawmill in the area.

By the 1930s Fouke had a number of dwellings concentrated at the intersection of several bladed earth roads two miles north of U.S. Highway 80. The community also had a business, two churches, and a school, which in 1932 had an enrollment of 17 white students and 111 black students. By 1960 the community had two churches and a few widely scattered dwellings. Sometime after 1960 Lake Hawkins was formed by a dam on the Little Sandy Creek, and by 1981 a number of new dwellings had appeared in the community, which supported two churches, two businesses, and a town hall, or community center.