Copeville is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

Collin County, Texas Collin County is a county in the northern part of the U.S. state of Texas. It is part of the Dallas- Fort Worth- Arlington metropolitan statistical area, and a small portion of the city of Dallas is in the county. At the 2020 United States c ...

, United States. According to the

Handbook of Texas The Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) is an American nonprofit educational and research organization dedicated to documenting the history of Texas. It was founded in Austin, Texas, United States, on March 2, 1897. In November 2008, the ...

, the community had a population of 106 in 2000. It is located in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.

History

Copeville was named for Miles Cope, one of the first people to settle in the area, and was initially located one mile west of the current townsite. In the 1850s, Cope organized the community alongside his father and brother. Thomas King plotted and surveyed the Copeville townsite in 1877. A post office was created the next year. The town featured a

sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logging, logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes ...

, a

flour mill A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and middlings. The term can refer to either the grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist is grain that has been separat ...

, a church, a

cotton gin A cotton gin—meaning "cotton engine"—is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation.. Reprinted by McGraw-Hill, New York and London, 1926 (); ...

, and a general shop by 1885. One mile east of Copeville is where the Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe Railroad's constructed track was built in 1886. Soon after, locals relocated their homes and businesses to the train line to benefit from it. Up to the 1930s, Copeville was used as a shipping hub by local farmers.

Dallas Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...

received much of its bois d'arc timber from the town between 1885 and 1890 when it was tested out as pavement material. Copeville's population may have reached 300 in 1915. However, the community's expansion was slowed down by the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

, farming's mechanization, and the employment options available in the Dallas metropolitan region. The population estimate had dropped to 240 in 1926 and stayed that way in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1943, there was an additional decrease to 150; this estimate did not change until the early 1970s. There were five businesses and two churches in the town in 1947. Copeville had seven enterprises and 106 persons between 1986 and 1990. In 2000, the population did not change. The population increased to 243 in 2010. On October 4, 1959, an F3 tornado struck Copeville. On the day after

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a Religion, religious and Culture, cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by coun ...

in 2015, an F2 tornado struck Copeville. A gas station and convenience store were completely destroyed, killing two people inside. A large garage structure was destroyed, and over 30 homes and businesses in the area were damaged, some severely. 119 people were injured.

Geography

Copeville is on

Texas State Highway 78 State Highway 78 (SH 78) is a state highway that follows surface roads in a predominantly southwest-to-northeast direction in the Dallas area before traveling north-northeast to the Oklahoma State border. Route description The highway's south ...

near the eastern shore of

Lavon Lake Lavon Lake is a freshwater reservoir located in southeast Collin County, Texas, on the East Fork of the Trinity River near Wylie, off State Highway 78. It is commonly called Lake Lavon for commercial and recreational purposes, but Lavon Lake is ...

, southwest of Farmersville, southeast of

McKinney McKinney is a city in and the county seat of Collin County, Texas, United States. It is Collin County's third-largest city, after Plano, Texas, Plano and Frisco, Texas, Frisco. A suburb of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, McKinney is about ...

, and northeast of Dallas in southeastern Collin County. It is also on Farm to Market Road 1778 on the Collin County Outer Loop.

Education

Copeville had its own school in 1885 and 1947. The community of Copeville is served by the

Community Independent School District The Community Independent School District (CISD) is a public school district based in Nevada, Texas, United States. Established in 1947, the district serves students in southeastern Collin County, including the towns of Copeville, Josephine, a ...

. It is zoned for McClendon Elementary School, Leland E. Edge Middle School, and Community High School.

Notable people

Aubrey Otis Hampton Aubrey Otis Hampton (September 10, 1900 in Copeville, Texas – July 17, 1955 in Weare, New Hampshire) was an American radiologist remembered for describing Hampton's hump and Hampton's line. He graduated from Baylor College of Medicine in 1925 ...

, radiologist who described

Hampton's hump Hampton's hump, also called Hampton hump, is a radiologic sign which consists of a shallow wedge-shaped opacity in the periphery of the lung with its base against the pleural surface. It is named after Aubrey Otis Hampton, who first described it ...

and Hampton's line. *

J. Weldon Jones James Weldon Jones (February 28, 1896 – November 24, 1982) was an American administrator and acting High Commissioner to the Philippines. Jones was born in Copeville, Texas, in Collin County. He went to Baylor University. Jones served in ...

, acting

High Commissioner to the Philippines The high commissioner to the Philippines was the personal representative of the president of the United States to the Commonwealth of the Philippines during the period 1935–1946. The office was created by the Tydings–McDuffie Act of 1 ...

. * Charlie Walker, country musician; member of the

Grand Ole Opry The ''Grand Ole Opry'' is a regular live country music, country-music Radio broadcasting, radio broadcast originating from Nashville, Tennessee, Nashville, Tennessee, on WSM (AM), WSM, held between two and five nights per week, depending on the ...

. * Charles "Tex" Watson, convicted

spree killer A spree killer is someone who commits a criminal act that involves two or more murders in a short time, often in multiple locations. There are different opinions about what durations of time a killing spree may take place in. The United States ...

and former member of the

Manson Family The Manson Family (known among its members as the Family) was a Intentional community, commune, gang, and cult led by criminal Charles Manson that was active in California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The group at its peak consisted of a ...

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Collin County, Texas Unincorporated communities in Texas Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex Populated places established in the 1850s