Lone Oak, TX

Lone Oak is a Hunt County city at the intersection of U.S. Highway 69 and Farm roads 513 and 1567, about ten miles southeast of Greenville. Settlers arrived in the late 1850s, and the community took its name from an impressive oak that stood alone on the prairie. A post office opened in 1869, the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad reached the area twelve years later, and Lone Oak incorporated in 1890. The railroad made the town a shipping point for area farmers, tying its streets to cotton, grain, and the wider Hunt County road map.

By the early twentieth century, Lone Oak had a steam gristmill, a cotton gin, three churches, a school, a weekly newspaper, and more than forty businesses. The town reached about 1,200 people by 1914 before the Depression and wartime years brought a long decline. Construction of Lake Tawakoni two miles southwest in the early 1960s slowed that slide. Lone Oak Independent School District still places elementary, middle, and high schools at the center of the community, while U.S. 69 keeps the old farm and railroad crossroads visible on the regional map.