Bridge Valley

Bridge Valley is near the crossing of Farm Road 609 and Buckner's Creek, three miles southwest of La Grange in Fayette County. Most of the site was land granted to John Dancy and Edward Manton qqv in the early 1830s. The settlement never became more than a farming community with an economy based on cotton and corn grown along the creek. During the 1880s many of the original settlers were replaced by the second big wave of German and Czech immigrants to Fayette County. In 1898 the business community consisted of a store and post office combination, a saloon, a blacksmith shop, and a school. Voters went to nearby La Grange to cast ballots. In 1903 the post office closed. Soon the other businesses closed too. By 1987 nothing remained except the farms, which concentrate on cattle raising, and Cedar Cemetery, just south of the creek.