Bead-Little Hope Green Brown Ceramic Disc TB

I maintain records on my trackables. For a US-based trackable, this one is unusual for its longevity and movement. In the six-year period, 2010-19, the owner released a total of 3,793 trackables in the United States (96%) and Europe (4%). This trackable is one of the 5% of the total that circulated for at least 5 years and had been moved at least 25 times. That is a target rate of at least five drops per year for five years, or a drop every 73 days. The average drop rate of my trackables in the US is 124 days, in Europe it is 71 days. As of 3-May-24 this trackable had survived for 7.2 years and had been moved by 29 cachers, for an average drop every 90 days, or 4.0 drops per year. Please keep it moving, then drop it in a safe place!

No permission is needed to leave the U.S. While in the U.S., please drop it at an event, in a Premium Member only OR a rural cache near a busy trail or road. Do not place it in an urban, non-premium cache. Transport the bug in the original plastic bag for as long as the bag lasts; the bag keeps the trackable clean and dry, protects the number and prevents tangling with other items. Otherwise, take the trackable anywhere you wish.

Little Hope is at the intersection of Farm roads 154 and 312, ten miles east of Quitman in eastern Wood County. The old Little Hope church and cemetery are about 1½ miles north of the community, which is sometimes referred to as the "new" Little Hope. The area was settled as early as the 1850s, and by 1857 a school, taught by fifteen-year-old Emily Smith, served both the Little Hope area and the Holly Springs community. In 1881 the Little Hope Missionary Baptist Church was organized; it was said to have taken its name from the fact that there was little hope that the church would survive more than a year. The first meeting of the church was held at a brush arbor near a place called the Murphy graveyard, but eventually a two-story building was constructed; the second story was used for meetings of the local Woodmen of the World lodge. Baptisms for the church were originally conducted at J. A. Stinson's millpond near the Speer community.  From 1933 to 1939 the community, which apparently never had a post office, reported a population of ten served by one business.  No further population figures are available, but by 1960 both the old Little Hope church area and the new Little Hope community had a few widely scattered dwellings, many abandoned.  By the early 1970s the membership of the Little Hope congregation had climbed to around 128, and around that time the church added a belfry incorporating the bell from a defunct school.  Little Hope church received a Texas Historical Commission marker in the early 1980s and was still active at that time.  The 1988 county highway map showed two businesses at the new Little Hope community.  In 2000 the population was still twenty-five.