Lakeview

Lakeview, on State Highway 256 in northern Hall County, has occupied two separate townsites. The first began near the center of the county on a section of the Southern Pacific Railroad survey on May 21, 1890. A town company was formed, and soon the site had a small store, a post office, a blacksmith shop, a church, and a cemetery. Several houses were also erected, and the town made an unsuccessful effort to become the county seat. Soon after the election, most of the houses were sold to farmers, and the land reverted to the family of S. L. Lindley. The post office was moved several times before being located at the homestead of David H. Davenport, who operated a rural store, in 1902. In 1905 Davenport purchased a tract of land two miles north of his farm. Since soft water was available there, he decided to build a town. After donating a site for a cotton gin, which was erected by the brothers W. J. and S. E. Lewis, Davenport moved his store and post office to the site and on June 11, 1908, platted the new town of Lakeview. In 1910 he established the First State Bank of Lakeview. The first school opened in 1908, and between 1915 and 1919 the town had a newspaper, the Lakeview News. Prospects for a railroad grew in 1910 when the Altus, Roswell and El Paso Company constructed a roadbed through Lakeview, but conditions of the times forced them to abandon that project. The town, however, prospered with several stores and telephone service. Two disastrous fires, in 1918 and 1919, prompted it to incorporate and organize a volunteer fire department. Lakeview had reached its zenith by the late 1920s, when it had several stores, restaurants, a hotel, and a population of over 1,000. A carnival atmosphere prevailed at the show building on Saturday nights and featured a dance for which Bob Wills (see WILLS, JAMES ROBERT) often furnished music.

Another business district fire in 1930 and the subsequent Great Depression threatened to finish off the town. Although it enjoyed a brief surge in the late 1940s Lakeview declined. The bank merged with the First National Bank of Memphis in 1953. By the 1980s Lakeview had a population of 244, the post office, a beauty parlor, a mercantile store, a grocery store and filling station, the school buildings, and three churches. The annual Lakeview Open, a popular tennis tournament, is held every Fourth of July weekend, and the Lakeview Homecoming is held every three years on the Saturday before Easter. In 1990 the population of the community was 202. The population dropped to 152 by 2000.