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
"MCGIRK,
TX." The Handbook of Texas Online