Five Notch
Harrison County, TX
Status: Located – Needs More Research
Year Established: Unknown
Council of Governments: ETCOG
Public History: There are no current descriptions related to Five Notch in the public record. If you are aware of any sources that we may have missed please share them with us.
Community History: “Five Notch is an African American settlement in Harrison County south of Marshall. The Paradise Baptist Church building remains extant along the east side of Five Notch Road (CR 1023). The historically African American congregation organized in 1925, and the existing church building, constructed in 1961 according to the cornerstone, replaced an early structure that burned. A second church, the Spirit of Truth Worship Center, also appears to be of historic age and is located further south on Five Notch Road.
The Five Notch school is depicted on the 1912 U.S. Bureau of Soils map and again on the 1950 general highway map of Harrison County. On the 1983 topographic map, the community of Five Notch is identified about one mile further north along the road than where the Five Notch school was identified previously. Although Five Notch is not identified on a 1958 topographic map of the area, there were a small number of structures within the vicinity at that time as well as the Paradise Baptist Church on the east side of Five Notch Road. Today, in addition to the two churches, a number of scattered residences and manufactured homes remain. Very little historical information is known about Five Notch, but the African American Five Notch school appears to have been associated with the community. Early-twentieth-century newspaper articles reference the school, and the January-February 1950 edition of The Texas Standard, a publication of the Colored Teachers’ State Association of Texas, noted the Five Notch School in Marshall as an “Honor School.”
The above information was derived from a TxDOT Historic Resources Survey Report about the State Loop 390/U 59 Relief Route (Future I-369) project. There is not a cemetery in the close vicinity of either church, but the nearby Liberty Cemetery may have served the community.
Church: Paradise Baptist Church
School: Five Notch School