Welcome to Salem ...
So far, we found very little information about Salem. The little that we've found leads us believe that the community is historic.<1>
We've added Salem to our Gazetteer with the hope that we can develop more information. We would especially like to find the location of Salem - knowing its coordinates, we can explore things like its relationship to neighboring communities, nearby cemeteries, etc. If you can help us with Salem, please Contact Us.
Salem was located in the Piney Woods (East Texas).
While we don't have the exact location of Salem , we believe that it would have been located within present day Newton County<2>.
While we don't have a date for the founding of Salem, you might consider that their post office opened in 1837.
When the people of Salem referred to themselves (known as a demonym), they are believed to have used Salemite<3>
Time Zone: The area where Salem was located is in the Central Time Zone (CST/CDT) and observes daylight saving time
Salem would have been located in the (409) area code.
Communities Also Named Salem ...
While we believe that this Salem is located in Newton County, we know of another 7 Texas communities named Salem. Those communities are located in the following counties: Bastrop, Cherokee, Grimes, Milam, Smith, Victoria and Wood County.
Beyond Texas, there are 122 communities that are also named Salem - they are located in Alabama (4), Arkansas (5), Connecticut, Florida, Georgia (8), Idaho, Illinois (2), Indiana (4), Iowa, Kansas (7), Kentucky (4), Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan (2), Mississippi (6), Missouri (4), Montana, Nebraska, New Brunswick (2), New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina (8), Nova Scotia, Ohio (7), Oklahoma (3), Ontario (6), Oregon, Pennsylvania (4), South Carolina (4), South Dakota, Tennessee (7), Utah, Virginia (5), West Virginia (3), Wisconsin (2) and Wyoming.
For more information, see our Tidbits & Trivia Page for Salem.
Adding Salem to Our Gazetteer ...
We originally found mention of Salem in both the FIPS-55 and the GNIS. For more information, see the FIPS and GNIS Codes sections on our Miscellaneous Page.
From our notes, the earliest published mention we've found for Salem was in the document titled List of Post Offices from Cameron Blevins and Richard Helbock.<4>
From that list, the Salem post office opened in 1837.
We also found Salem in the book titled Table of U.S. Post Offices in the United States (Jan. 1851).
For more details, see References and Mentions for Salem.
Off-the-Road Links ...
The official website for State of Texas: https://texas.gov/
Footnotes ...
| <1> | We use the term 'Historic' broadly and it generally means that the community no longer exists. However, it can also mean that the community might still exist, but was significantly larger or had a more 'official' existence in the past than it does now. Unfortunately our sources of data have proven to be unreliable. If you can provide us with more specific information about Salem, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy. |
| <2> | If you're interested in how the shape of Texas' counties, including Newton, have changed over time, we recommend the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries. |
| <3> | A demonym is the name for a resident of a community which is usually derived from (or is related to) the name of that community. In other words, it's how the residents of Salem refer to themselves. It's important to note that there aren't any rules for taking a community's name and turning it into a demonym. A demonym is informal and while the majority of Salem may use one name, keep in mind that others may use something different. |
| <4> | A copy of their list with background information can be found at: https://cblevins.github.io/us-post-offices/data-biography/ |