Cumby, TX

Cumby is a Hopkins County city on the Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas railroad, just north of Interstate 30 and west of Sulphur Springs. The 2020 census counted 679 residents. D. W. Cole settled the place in 1842, and the blackjack oak grove nearby gave the community its first name, Black Jack Grove. The post office cycled through Theodocias and back to Black Jack Grove before the town took the name Cumby in 1896 for Confederate veteran Robert H. Cumby.

Railroad arrival in 1880 changed the town's reputation and helped it grow a business center. Cumby once had banks, lumberyards, cotton gins, an oil mill, churches, and a broom factory; the city now connects local homes and farms to I-30 and the South Sulphur River watershed. Cumby Collegiate Independent School District, City Hall on East Main Street, parks, and downtown businesses give the community its daily shape. Sulphur Springs is the county seat and larger service center, but Cumby keeps its own crossroads history.