A very small town in Texas, on State Highway 103. The community began its life as the town of Macedonia in 1876, and six years later had grown enough to apply for a post office. It took another four years for one to appear, and to earn one the town had to pay for weekly mail deliveries from Nacogdoches and also change its name. Residents selected the French word for star - étoile - as the new name for their community. A few years before the turn of the century the main attraction was the Fisher and Crown General Store, but by 1915 the town's population had grown to 300 and it had gained telephone service and another general store. Ten years later the population dropped to 100, and when the local rail line stopped serving the town in 1950, the population was cut in half. A dam and reservoir was built nearby in the early 1960s. Throughout the 1980s Etoile was mostly a retirement community, with a population of 70 and a few stores mixed in with bait houses, marinas, boat stalls and campgrounds. Some residents raised beef cattle and chickens, and in the early 1990s the town reported a population of 70, seven businesses, and one post office.

Source: http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/EE/hne29.html

Sorry Webster, but I couldn't let the e2node with my name on it remain so terribly small and useless!

E`toile" (?), n. [F.] Her.

See Estoile.

 

© Webster 1913.

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