Powderly Volunteer

HISTORY OF POWDERLY-
Powderly is located on U.S. Highway 271 nine miles north of Paris in north central Lamar County. It was settled around the time of the Civil War and was originally known as Lenoir. When the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway was built through the area in the 1880s, the community was renamed Powderly in honor of Terence V. Powderly, a labor leader and later a commissioner of immigration in the McKinley administration. A post office was established in 1888, and by 1890 the town had a general store, two cotton gins, a gristmill, a sawmill, a blacksmith, and an estimated population of thirty. In 1914 the town's population was 100. - Courtesy, Texas State Historical Association