Born in Gregg County in 1859 to farmers and laborers William and Mariah Henry, Reeves Henry became a prominent local African American businessman in Kaufman County. He married Carrie Echols in 1880, and they had nine children: Felix, Josephine, Arthur Lee, Maria, Ada, Devonia, Dave, Daisy, and Zaing. The family moved from Gregg County to Kaufman County sometime in the 1890s. Trained as a machinist, Henry sometimes repaired locomotives, and in Kaufman County he established a blacksmith shop where he also repaired automobiles, wagons, carriages, and accessories, often improvising repairs from items considered junk. Forney native Hubert Feagin remembered him as a mechanical genius for his ingenuity, inventiveness, and problem-solving skills. In 1907 and 1921, Henry filed patents for cotton chopping machines and earned a reputation for excellence in both mechanical skill and customer service. Although Jim Crow laws made life difficult for African Americans, he appeared to be well respected by all. Sometime before 1914, he opened a new shop at the corner of Center Street and Pacific Street, and business boomed. Around that time, he built a home four blocks to the southeast at Broad and Pine; it was the first black-owned house in Forney to have a telephone, and he was possibly the wealthiest black man in Forney then. In 1925, the Henry Blacksmith Shop was demolished to make way for construction of the B.A. Badgett Gin. Henry died on November 4, 1930, and was buried in Prairie View Cemetery in an unmarked grave.