Bogata, TX

Bogata is a Red River County city whose name began with a post-office spelling accident. William and Mary McGill Humphries settled by springs on Little Mustang Creek in 1836, calling the community Maple Springs. When a second post office opened in 1881, postmaster James E. Horner proposed the name of Colombia’s capital, Bogotá; the accepted spelling became Bogata, and locals pronounce it “Buh-goh-ta.” By 1885 the settlement had churches, cotton gins, gristmills, and about 400 residents.

The Paris and Mount Pleasant Railway reached Bogata in 1910 and pulled the commercial center toward a new Main Street near the tracks. Trains ended in 1956, while U.S. 271, State Highway 37, and Farm Road 909 still meet at the city’s crossroads, about 20 miles north of Interstate 30 near Mount Vernon. City Hall occupies North Main Street, and Rivercrest’s elementary, junior high, and high school campus sits on U.S. 271 south of town. Farming and ranching remain part of the surrounding map, with the road network carrying Bogata’s older rail-town layout into the present.