McGIRK

McGIRK was named for Dennis McGirk, who hailed from Missouri. McGirk was first called Antioch. McGirk is in the southern part of the county near the midpoint of the Hamilton-Mills County line and about seventeen miles southwest of Hamilton.  McGirk was established in the early 1870's. A steam-powered Ball and Bickle Gin was built in McGirk in 1892 to serve cotton growers in McGirk, Partridge Creek, Springdale and the surrounding area. Four men were required to operate this two-stage gin. Gaither Ball was the ginner; J. J. Rumans; and two Kincheloe men operated the press.

Ball & Bickle Gin Men

Early settlers included Gaither J. Ball, Henry Cornelius, Tom Kinsey, Capt. Fleming Jordon Crews, Ludwig Rickle, J. B. Beall, and the Newton families. The Crews family arrived in McGirk in 1881 from TN.

"John W. and Lucy Jane Crowder accompanied by some of their children moved into the McGirk community prior to the 1880 census, coming there from Rusk County, Texas, where they had emigrated from Mississippi. Daughter Jemima married Andrew Jackson Smith; Ellen married John Calvin Wells and they and their infant daughter, Ella ( who later married John William Bryan of Pottsville ) are listed in the 1880 census in the McGirk community living in the household with John Wells' brother, Samuel T. Wells, his wife, Emma and their son, William Nelson ( Willie ) Wells .The Wells, Crews and Bryans had numerous marriages among the three families." --From Joe Lee