Red Creek, West Virginia on a Mapquest Map. The
current population is about 77.
Juanita Stewart of Georgia, who grew up in the
area, told me that Ebenezer Flanagan was the:
". . . first permanent settler in the Dry Fork
area [in West Virginia], and apparently the
holder of the first land grant received in the
area. He came from the South Branch Valley [the
Potomac] and obtained a grant for a large area
just south of the Canaan Valley. This area ever
since has been called Flanagan Hill. Since there
was no other kind of shelter, he and his family
lived under a cliff of rocks against Pointy Knob
while he built his cabin." Ebenezer settled at
the head waters of Big Run (between Flanagan Hill
and Canaan Valley) on April 5, 1792. " Flanagan
Hill is in Dry Fork District, on State Route 72,
thirteen miles from Hendricks, and is the oldest
community in Dry Fork District, being established
about 1800 by the Flanagan family."
Pointy Knob is on Canaan Mountain, just south of
Canaan Valley, according to a photocopy from a
book. "This is where Ebenezer Flanagan, the first
settler in the area, came with his family on April
5, 1792, and made their home under a cliff of rocks
until they got a cabin built. The community has
been called Flanagan Hill ever since that time."
The area is behind the Flanagan Hill School
building which is now being used by the Flanagan
Hill Homemakers Club. The Red Creek post office is
at Flanagan Hill. The "Flanagan Hill store and post
office building," says Juanita Stewart, "was built
about 1900. A country store where people could come
to talk and visit is becoming pretty rare now but
was very much a part of country living in years
past."
History of Tucker County (Fansler, 1962)
says, "Flanagan Hill was never incorporated but it
has been the center of community life in Dry Fork
for 150 years and has had a post office since 1856.
William Raines, a Democrat, was the first
postmaster. The Flanagans were Republicans and he
abhorred the idea of giving his post office a
Republican name, so he named it Red Creek."
In the 1830's, Ebenezer was buried in Flanagan
Hill Cemetery (not the cemetery of the same name at a
church in Red Creek).
Georgia Jahnke of a neighboring town gave me
information from a book: "`When asked about [the]
name `Red Creek' instead of Flanagan Hill, she (Ms.
Hedrick, mentioned below) said, "This confuses a
lot of People." She explained that the creek runs
from Laneville, where it's called the Red Creek
through Dry Fork. Her grandfather, William Raines,
had a store on Flanagan Hill and there was a post
office in Dry Fork called the Red Creek Post
Office. "Then they moved the post office up here to
my grandfather's store where he had it until his
death. The post office was still called Red Creek.
William Raines is considered to be the first
postmaster of the Red Creek Post Office.'--from
Maudie Raines Hedrick in And Live Forever
by Mariwyn McClain Smith.
---Sandra G. Holland
Flanagan, Texas should be somewhere within the
confines of this MapQuest Map.
Flanagan, Texas is about four miles northwest of
Tatum and twenty-one miles northeast of Henderson
in northeastern Rusk County. It was was named for
David Webster Flanagan, who was a Brig. General in
the Civil war, and a Republican politician. The
town was started in 1882, and was a station on the
Longview and Sabine Valley Railway. A post office
opened there in 1900. The population at the turn of
the century was recorded as fifty, and it was known
as a shipping point for lumber. Population for
Flanagan reached 200 by 1914. However, its post
office was discontinued in 1916, and was no longer
labeled on the 1982 county highway map. Information
found in
"The Handbook of Texas Online."
---Micki Flanagan Perry
Flanagan, Illinois, U.
S. of A.
