Hamshire, TX

Hamshire is a Jefferson County census-designated place on State Highway 124, about twenty miles southwest of Beaumont. The community was probably named for land developer Lovan Hamshire, who was working the area by the 1870s; a post office followed in 1897, and the Gulf and Interstate Railway gave the place a rail line. Rice farming, later oil and gas fields, and the Hamshire-Fannett school district all appear in the local record. Hamshire is a Southeast Texas crossroads whose name, railroad, highway, and agricultural setting still fit together.