Editing Celeste, Texas (section)

==History==

Like many towns in Hunt County, Celeste<ref name="TSHA">[https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hlc16 Texas State Historical Association], CELESTE, TX The Handbook of Texas Online</ref> was a product of railroad development. The townsite was platted in 1886 by the [[Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway]] {{convert|3|mi|0}} north of [[Kingston, Texas|Kingston]], on open prairie already crossed by the [[Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad|Missouri, Kansas and Texas]] line. This location was chosen in order to ensure that Kingston, whose elected officials had refused to offer incentives to attract the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe to build through their community, would be bypassed by the line as it put down tracks from [[Paris, Texas|Paris]] through [[Farmersville, Texas|Farmersville]] to [[Dallas]].
[[File:Celeste, Texas (ca. 1905-1909).jpg|thumb|left|Sanger Street (circa 1905–09)]]

Celeste was named for the wife of a Santa Fe official. The two rail lines stimulated rapid growth. A post office opened in Celeste in 1886, and a number of merchants moved their businesses from Kingston to Celeste. By 1888 three churches were holding services in the settlement. The population by the mid-1890s stood at 600, and the community maintained three gristmills and cotton gins, a bank, a weekly newspaper, and a graded public school. Celeste was incorporated in 1900, and its population increased from 671 that year to 850 on the eve of [[World War I]].

By 1914 the community had two banks, three cotton gins, a water works, an ice factory, and a weekly newspaper, as well as some thirty-five other businesses. It reported a population of 1,022 by 1926. Its high school and two elementary schools registered 500 students. Some fifty business establishments, including two banks and a newspaper, were in operation. After the 1920s, however, the population of Celeste fell from 803 in 1933 to 518 in the mid-1960s; businesses correspondingly declined, from thirty to sixteen. After the 1960s the town revived; in 1976 its population was 745. In 1982 the community, where [[World War II]] hero [[Audie Murphy]] once lived, had a bank, four churches, ten stores, and a school that enrolled 300 students. The population was 733 in 1990 and 817 in 2010.