Argenta

ARGENTA, TEXAS . Argenta is a rural community on Farm Road 88 nineteen miles southeast of George West in the southeastern corner of Live Oak County. Richard Bethel Bomar moved to the area from Oklahoma in 1903, cleared land, and sold it to friends from Oklahoma. In 1907 the community was granted a post office with the name of Ego; citizens built a church in 1909 under Bomar's leadership, and in 1910 the settlement was renamed Argenta. Between 1910 and 1926 Argenta grew to include a general store, a gristmill, and a blacksmith shop. In 1917 a schoolhouse was built, and by 1925 the town had an estimated population of fifty. A cotton gin brought from Oklahoma was never put into operation, however, and about 1925 the community began to decline. It lost its post office in 1926, in 1927 the general store closed, and by 1940 only the schoolhouse, the church, and scattered dwellings remained at the site. In 1945 the school was consolidated with the Mathis school district. In 1981 the church was still used by a small Church of Christ congregation; the old schoolhouse was a community center. In the early 1980s new homes were being built in the area.