SIVELLS BEND

NAME: Sivells Bend COUNTY: Cooke ROADS: 2WD GRID: 1 CLIMATE: Hot summer, cold in winter; occasional ice BEST TIME TO VISIT: Spring (Not so Hot)

COMMENTS: Les than 100. REMAINS: Houses. The foundations/chimneys/water tanks of the Fort/POW Camp

Sivells Bend is on Farm Road 1201 four miles from the Red River and twenty miles northwest of Gainesville in central north Cooke County. Simon and Bill Sivells, after whom the town was named, moved to the site from Kentucky Town, Texas, around 1850 and built a small store in the vicinity. Because of continued Indian attacks the Sivellses abandoned their store, and nine more years passed before a permanent community was established. In its early years Sivells Bend was settled mainly by farmers. In the late 1860s a branch of the Chisholm Trailqv came through the community. By 1872 the town had a post office; ten years later it had a population of 100, three general stores, three steam gristmill-cotton gins, a blacksmith, two physicians, and a teacher. During the Civil Warqv a company of Confederate soldiers commanded by a Captain Clark was stationed at Sivells Bend. In the 1930s oil was discovered in Cooke County, but the population declined to a low of forty by the early 1940s, when the large army training post Camp Howze was being built. The Camp was also used as a POW camp to house prisoners from the German Afrika Corp. A book,"When the Afrika Corps came to Texas" was written about the area. The post office at Sivells Bend was discontinued in 1973. Submitted by: Tammy Cox

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