Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Ravenna, TX

Ravenna is a small city on Farm Roads 274 and 1753 in northwestern Fannin County, Texas, five miles northwest of Bonham and six miles south of the Red River.

Settlers began moving into the Ravenna area as early as 1850, and the small community that developed was first known as Willow Point.

Local tradition says the name Ravenna came from the numerous ravines in the vicinity, especially a deep ravine that cut through the middle of the townsite.

By the mid-1880s Ravenna had a population of 150 and a post office, and the community incorporated in 1887.

A private school called Ravenna College was established in Ravenna by G. L. Marshall and Kate Wolfe before being moved to Ector in 1889.

The Denison, Bonham and New Orleans Railroad built tracks through Ravenna in 1891, and in the early 1890s the town boomed to about 400 residents served by some thirty businesses.

Before World War I Ravenna reached roughly 500 residents, and through the 1920s it remained a trade and cotton center with about twenty-five businesses, including at least two banks.

The Ravenna school was annexed by the Bonham school system in 1949, and local children have attended Bonham schools ever since.

The population of Ravenna was 175 at the 2020 census, down from 209 in 2010, and the median age of its residents was 45.5 years.