Vaughn

Vaughn is at the intersection of Farm roads 1947 and 310, half a mile east of Aquilla Lake and nine miles southwest of Hillsboro in south central Hill County. Archeological excavations before the construction of Aquilla Lake turned up many Indian artifacts. The first white settlement in the area was called Willow; it was two miles to the east and had a church and a school. The Vaughn community was probably named for Dr. B. H. Vaughn, who lived in the community in the 1880s. In 1885 the Vaughn community received a post office, and by 1890 the town had a population of twenty-five, a general store, a physician, and a wagonmaker. Its first cotton gin was built in 1898. Around 1900 Vaughn had its own Baptist church, and later a Methodist church was founded. By 1915 the Willow school had consolidated with the Vaughn school, and the school was located in Vaughn. The population of Vaughn was estimated as fifty in the early 1930s, when three businesses were reported there; the population stayed at this level until the 1960s. In 1959 a tornado killed seven people in Vaughn and destroyed its churches. By 1970 the Vaughn population had grown to seventy, but no businesses were reported. In the 1980s the Baptist church was the only remaining institution in Vaughn. The population was still reported as seventy through 2000.