HOPEWELL, TEXAS (Smith County). Hopewell is four miles north of Tyler and just north of Swan off U.S. Highway 69 in central Smith County. The settlement had been founded by 1887, when a post office was established there with Leonard N. Stell as postmaster. But Hopewell was bypassed by the International-Great Northern Railroad, and in 1891 the post office was transferred to Swan, the railroad town. In 1903 Hopewell had a one-teacher school for fifty black students and a two-teacher school for eighty-two white students. The Hopewell Baptist Church had been established by 1910, and on October 26 of that year, fifty-six members of the congregation founded the Swan Baptist Church. In the 1920s the local school was a large, two-story, galleried, white frame building with two teachers and seventeen white students. In 1936 Hopewell was served by an elementary school, which that year had forty-five white students and two teachers; the thirty-two local black children were not enrolled. At that time the community also had a church, two cemeteries, and a small cluster of farms. By 1952 nearby rural schools had been consolidated into the Hopewell Independent School District. Only the church and cemetery and a few scattered dwellings remained at the site in 1960. The school district had been absorbed by the Lindale system. In 1973 Hopewell had a church, two cemeteries, and a cluster of dwellings. It was still shown on the 1981 county highway map. (courtesy Texas State Historical Association - www.tshaonline.org)