Blossom

Blossom is on the Missouri Pacific Railroad and at the intersection of Farm Road 196 and U.S. Highway 82, nine miles east of Paris in eastern Lamar County. The site was occupied by 1849, when the post office opened under the name Blossom Prairie. In 1876 the settlement became a stop on the Texas and Pacific Railway and was soon a shipping point for lumber, railroad ties, livestock, and grain. By 1884 the population reportedly had grown to 1,000. Businesses included five steam-operated gristmill-cotton gins, four sawmills, five grocery stores, two drugstores, three saloons, two dry goods stores, and Mrs. L. E. Jackson's millinery. Citizens also had access to three churches, a district school, a telegraph office, three doctors, a lawyer, a barber, and an undertaker. A newspaper, the Knights of Honor Sentinel , was published weekly, and D. G. Flenniken was postmaster.