Antioch Community

Antioch, formerly an active farming community, is today a rural locale of western Hood County. The last Indian fight in the county, called Point of the Timbers or Battle of Lookout Point, occurred in this vicinity in September 1869. Organized settlement began in the 1870s, when families established ranches at the head of Stroud's Creek upstream from Thorp Spring.

Stage routes from Fort Worth and Tolar also passed nearby. A Baptist church, school and cemetery begun two miles east in 1881 became a small settlement called Stroud's Creek. In August 1889, the congregation moved to this site and changed the church name to Antioch. The Musick family gave land for the church and an adjoining cemetery.

The first grave in Antioch Cemetery, that of teenager Lottie Brown, dates to May 1890. Confederate veterans George Washington Brown (1811-1891) and Austin Musick (1826-1897) are also interred there. The cemetery became inactive in 1941. By 1956, membership of the Antioch Missionary Baptist Church had dwindled to twelve members, and so the congregation disbanded and the church building was moved to Paluxy.

In 1894, Ellis School of Stroud's Creek split into Ellis, Asbury and Antioch schools. Early Antioch teacher Richard Mugg later became county school superintendent and county judge. Asbury merged with Antioch (known locally as Midway) in 1920. Classes ended in 1941 and students attended Tolar School, where the mascot of the Rattlers was inspired by a four-foot rattlesnake captured on Antioch's Jarvis Ranch.

With the school and church buildings now gone, the cemetery marks the historic center of Antioch. (2006)