Emergency Crime Scene and Biohazard Cleanup in Mertens, TX

Mertens is a small incorporated town in far eastern Hill County, North Central Texas, at the intersection of Farm Road 308 and State Highway 22, thirteen miles east of Hillsboro.

Mertens takes its name from the wife of the engineer of the first train that ran through town on the St. Louis Southwestern Railway, which was built through the area from Corsicana toward Hillsboro in the late 1880s.

The first permanent settler near Mertens was J. K. Walling, who arrived from Tennessee in 1884 and bought 135 acres on Richland Creek; by 1890 the community had about 75 residents, physicians, general stores, a blacksmith shop, and a gristmill and cotton gin.

Mertens became a railroad crossroads when the International–Great Northern Railroad also reached the community, and its post office opened in 1888, followed by a bank within four years.

Mertens was incorporated on January 12, 1914, with E. W. Bookout elected its first mayor, and electric power reached the town the following year.

The population of Mertens peaked in the 1920s at 342 people, but the town declined after its last cotton gin closed in 1978 and the railroads ended service.

The 2020 census counted 144 people in Mertens — in 2000 its 146 residents lived in just 58 households in the town's 0.4 square miles.

Mertens is served by the Frost Independent School District.