W. A. Lloyd settled where C. L. Lloyd now lives. M. D. Matthews settled here. Part of his place now belongs to D. T. Loyd, superintendent of East Mountain school. Robert Shaw settled where Howard Jones now lives. Bill Hawkins settled where his son, Henry, now lives. Mark Shaw settled west of the school house, where he still lives. Dick Guest settled a little to the east of the school house, where he lived till his death. Mr. Guest was an influential citizen in the community and took a great interest in the school and community life. Florence settled where I. Glasco now lives. W. W. Hawkins ran a cotton gin before the first war, but there is no gin now. There was, at one time, a saw mill here, operated by Glasco and Glasco. Churches The Missionary Baptist Church is the only church meeting here at the present time. The Methodist Church, the Church of Christ, and the Nazarenes all formerly met here, but they have discontinued or changed their place of meeting. Schools Children in the high school grades are carried to East Mountain, while the lower grades attend the local elementary school. Sand Hill gets mail from Gilmer on Rural Route No. 5. Latch In about the year 1900, there was a fine area of timber land lying about eight miles a little to the southwest of Gilmer. Most of this land belonged to the public schools of Nacogdoches County. Mr. L. A. Latch came in here about that time and bought up a lot of this land and timber and put in a saw mill and began cutting this fine timber into lumber. There was an abundance of large, heart timber with trees from two to three feet in diameter. This lumber was of an excellent quality, and houses built back in those days are still standing in almost perfect condition. This country was all in the woods at that time, with the exception of a few scattering settlements nearby. There were the Carrols, who lived near what was known as Carrol’s Chapel. The Steelmans lived to the north, near Hopewell church. A Mr. Steelman ran a horse power cotton gin out on the Gilmer road. As the timber was cut off this land, it was sold to settlers and a prosperous farming community was built up. Some of these settlers were, Tom Bullard, Jim Moore, Giles Steelman, John Earp, the Longs, and many others who helped to build up the Latch community. Latch got a post office, with a star route, which came from Gilmer around by Calloway and Shady Grove. Soon a school building was erected and later on, Latch had a good school. Latch at the present time is a prosperous community. It has two stores and filling stations that do nice business.