Biohazard Cleanup Near North Huckabay Huckabay, TX

Huckabay is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in northern Erath County, at the intersection of State Highway 108 and Farm Road 219, about ten miles northwest of Stephenville.

The community was founded in 1875 as "Flat Woods" by pioneers from Arkansas and Tennessee who settled on the headwaters of the Bosque River.

Confederate veteran John Copeland taught the first local school sessions in his home in 1876 and 1877, and a Church of Christ congregation was also formed at Huckabay in 1876.

G. W. Glenn opened Huckabay's first store in 1878.

The community took its present name in 1888, when John Huckabay — a farmer-storekeeper who had been bringing the settlers' mail from Stephenville — secured a post office that was named for him; the post office closed in 1965.

Cotton supported Huckabay in its early decades before peanut production briefly took over, and John Huckabay and W. C. Rigsby opened a cotton gin there in 1891.

In 1902, teacher C. H. Hale founded the Huckabay Academy, a high school that later offered college courses and was said to have won every debate, oratory event, and athletic contest it ever entered; it closed in 1914.

Five area schools were consolidated into the Huckabay district in 1930, and the Huckabay Independent School District — home of the Huckabay High School Indians — remains the heart of the community today.

Huckabay's population was 174 in 1900 and was reported at about 150 from 1970 through 2000, but the 2020 census counted 268 people in the census-designated place.

A Texas historical marker was placed on FM 219 in 1975 to preserve the memory of the community, which today consists mainly of its school, two churches, a cemetery, and a few old houses.