Purdon

Purdon is on Farm Road 55 three miles south of State Highway 31, fourteen miles southwest of Corsicana in south central Navarro County. It was originally known as Belle Point and was little more than a school and a church, for which the original settler, Capt. J. A. Harrison, was largely responsible. In 1882 the St. Louis Southwestern Railway, also known as the Cotton Belt, came through the area, and lots were laid out for the town. Credit for the name of Purdon is given to a railroad man named Harris, who was attracted to a Miss Ada Purdom, a cashier at the store where he bought supplies. By an inadvertent spelling mistake at the general office the town became Purdon. A post office was established in 1881. The first school in the town itself was held in an old seed house that also doubled as a church for a time. The town experienced moderate growth during the remainder of the nineteenth century. Its population was close to eighty in 1896. By 1914 the population was at its peak of 400, and the town had a brick schoolhouse, several stores, a lumberyard, two gins, and a bank. By 1958 the population had dropped to 200. From 1977 to 2000 the population was 133, and Purdon had a few stores.