Clareville was a small town established in late 1800's early 1900's. Not much is known about this town except that it consisted of a post office (no longer standing) an old school house (not in use, still standing). Submitted by: Buddy

Clareville was originally Lomita (fd 1874). It was renamed Clareville in the 1880s when my gggrandfather Henry T Clare bought a lot of land around it. - Willard Phillips

CLAREVILLE (Clareville - Bee County, Texas)

John 1. Clare came to Bee County in the early 1870s and purchased a large tract of land ten miles west of Beeville. He divided part of the pasture into small farms, and the settlers who purchased the property formed the nucleus of a village that was named Clareville, in honor of John 1. and other members of the Clare family. This acreage today is considered as some of the best farm land in Bee County.

Gus Clare, brother of John I., built one of the first residences in the community. Among the early settlers were Joseph Gustave Rountree, W. H. Ross, J. J. Anderson, Alfred Cready, J. C. Thompson, John Stillwell, John H. Impson, A. J. Handly, Ernest Caldwell, Will Connally, and others. Mr. Connally was the father of Dr. L. N. Connally, retired dentist of Beeville.

In 1906 the E. B. Hall family arrived from Hope, Ark., and added considerably to the business and social life of the community. Mr. Hall established a general merchandise store and sold dress‑making materials, groceries, hardware, and farming implements.

The road from Beeville to Clareville was crooked and sandy. When the Halls arrived the town had a post office, seven stores. two churches, a meat market, and a dance hall and cold drink stand combined.

The town of Dinero (Spanish word for money) was ten miles west of Clareville, in Live Oak County. Clinton Dewitt (Dee) Johnson drove the mail hack from Dinero through Clareville to Beeville, a distance of twenty miles, twice a week. He was the grandfather of Mrs. Ned Everett and Mrs. W. H. Whitenton of Beeville and an uncle of Mrs. Agnes Mae (Johnson) Nichols, also of Beeville.

Mr. Hall and his brothers, J. Sid and Colie of Beeville, built their first cotton gin at Clareville. Later they erected gins in a number of South Texas towns. Many years later, E. B. Hall sold his store and moved to Beeville, where he operated a dry goods store for a number of years. His daughter, Ivah, married Grover Impson. Mrs. Impson and her brother, J. T. Hall, and the latter’s wife, Dorothy (Chambliss) Hall, were killed in an automobile accident several years ago.

,During World War 11, Mr. and Mrs. Impson used their home and the contiguous ranch houses to fake care of Navy men and Waves at Chase Field who were experiencing difficulties in making adjustment to military service. After these men and women regained their composure and went info action, Mr. and Mrs. Impson received letters from them from various parts of the world expressing gratitude for the kindness that had been shown. Chase Field officials praised this couple highly.

The early Clareville store buildings were made with high fronts and some had board walks. All stores had hitching posts for the accommodation of the farmers and ranchers who came to town In wagons, buggies and on horseback.

Traditional history of the old village relates that during the early 1900s when a customer was in a store at lunch time, he either ate a lunch of canned food and crackers, or he went home with the merchant. And nearly always, the latter custom was observed.

Medical doctors who practiced at Clareville at different times were Dr. J. L. Nunnelly, Dr. J. N. Lightsey, Dr. T. C. Whitehead, and Dr. Uel Keith. The first store in the community was owned by J. H. Bell in 1886. Later came Jim Hatcher's Store, Dr. J. N. Nunnelly's Drug Store, Ernest Kinkier's Meat Market, Tom Gill's Store. and Hicks' Ice Cream Parlor. There was a two‑story frame schoolhouse, and the teachers were Mrs. Edwin Kinkier and Miss Lenna Lockett, and the town had two churches, Baptist and Methodist.

With the coming of good roads to the county seat, Beeville merchants attracted a greater portion of the rural people's trade, and the business houses at Clareville gradually were closed. When farmers, who at first planted practically nothing but cotton, began to diversify and plant grain crops to feed livestock, the gins in Clareville also went out of business. The Clareville Common School District was consolidated with the Skidmore‑Tynan School District.

All of the foregoing operations served to reduce a once‑active community to a status of Ghost Town, but there are many families living in the Clareville area on progressive farms and ranches - Camp Ezell