WAKEFIELD, TEXAS. Wakefield is on Farm Road 357 105 miles north of Houston in northern Polk County. It was known as Easom before the Civil War. After the completion of the Houston East and West Texas Railway through northern Polk County, John Napoleon Fant built a sawmill and tram road at Easom in the latter 1880s. A post office called Fant was open from 1889 to 1892. In 1902 Fant sold his mill to Peter Josserand and George Johnson, who changed the name of the little sawmilling community to Petersburg. A new post office by that name was established in 1903. In 1907 the mill was sold to Ed Ingram, who renamed the community Potomac. The post office followed suit, and the Potomac post office served local residents until 1910. As the area's forests were cut out, the lumber industry in Polk County declined. Although only a few farmers remained, another post office was established at the site in 1925. The name Wakefield was selected to honor an early settler in the region, W. D. Wakefield. The community was reported to have twenty residents through the mid-1960s; the post office has been closed. In 1990 the community was still listed. The population was twenty-five in 2000.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: A Pictorial History of Polk County, Texas, 1846-1910 (Livingston, Texas: Polk County Bicentennial Commission, 1976; rev. ed. 1978).
