It was the forerunner to the economic development corporation.

That’s how Bean Hill got its start sometime around 1900.

Glen Canipe built a saloon at this farming community some three and a half miles east of Oenaville and about a mile and a half from the Falls County line.

Today a collection of farms dot the landscape along FM 3369 where the community used to be.

The Rosebud News reported in 1931 that the first name suggested for the community was that of a delicate flower. Legend has it that some wag said, “You had better call it a bean hill.” The name somehow stuck.

Notes on Bell County, a working file developed by local historians Michael and Nancy Kelsey, indicate that by 1907 there were two businesses in operation in Bean Hill. Emil Birkelbach, formerly of Fayette County, operated a general store. C. Albert opened a blacksmith shop.

By the end of 1907 nine families lived in the community. During the next 20 years, 20 more families were recorded living there.

According to Notes on Bell County, a tragedy struck the Bean Hill community in 1907. A dance was held at the home of Clint Woods and several of the young men present had been drinking whiskey.

An argument erupted between Bud Cantrell and Pearl Woods, Clint Wood’s brother. Cantrell pulled a gun and shot Woods dead. Woods, a single man, was said to be portly and tipped the scales at 360 pounds.

Another incident involving gunfire erupted 10 years later. In 1917 Joe Marcek opened the Bean Hill Store.

According to the Temple Daily Telegram of March 1, 1917, Marcek was called out of his house between 1 and 2 a.m. and attacked by two men - one of whom shot Marcek with a .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol.

“He was shot in the kneecap and it was said yesterday evening that there were fears he would die of lockjaw,” the article read.

At midnight he was reported resting nicely in a surgical institution, it continued.

Marcek told officers that C.B. Walden who lived near Rosebud and Oscar Brown of Bean Hill were his attackers and that he was shot soon after leaving the house with them.

Justice of the Peace Humphries arraigned Walden on a $1,000 bond charged with assault to murder and on a $200 bond on a charge of carrying a pistol. Brown pleaded guilty to a charge of rowdiness.

The Telegram did not report what sparked the incident.

According to Bell County Notes, Benjamin Joseph Bigler, his wife Eva Josephine and their three young daughters moved to Bean Hill in 1920. Bigler purchased a five-acre tract with an old home, a barn and a stock tank. He later erected a cotton gin here and a country store that sold among other things, ice.

A cotton gin was a business he knew well. Bigler had built a gin at Edgeworth in 1905 - but it had burned. He built a second gin Mareksville that he later sold to his brother, Ed.

The cotton gin at Bean Hill was an enterprise he ran for the next 16 years. The well on Bigler’s property never went dry even during droughts. It was said many farmers came to Bigler’s place to draw drinking water for their families and livestock.

In 1936 Bigler sold the gin and his property and moved to Pendleton. The gin burned the next year in 1937.

Today county blacktop roads run on slightly different routes than the old gravel and dirt roads of the early 20th century. Little evidence remains of Bean Hill except for a short gravel road. It connects into FM 3369 and is called the Bean Hill Spur Road.

Kelsey said down that road is the spot where the Bigler cotton gin and homestead once stood.

All that remains today of Bean Hill are two pecan trees that Mr. Bigler planted, the well that never went dry, the water tank and a concrete slab where the gin once stood, Kelsey said.

Bean Hill is like so many small Bell County communities that have disappeard over time leaving in their wake so many stories.