Georgia native George Washington Green grew up in Tennessee and in 1878 went to Texas after marrying Tempie Ann Fowler in Logansport, Louisiana, that year. The couple settled in this part of Texas, where Green first worked as a sharecropper growing cotton and corn before buying his first parcel of land in 1883. In 1885, as the Houston East & West Texas Railroad began building its line through Shelby County, G.W. Green bought more land on both sides of the track and became a prominent landowner who operated a general store and cotton gin. The Bobo community, mainly a train stop, was established on Green's land and had a post office from 1893 until 1898. The conductor's call of "Tenaha, Timpson, Bobo and Blair" for stops along the rail line became widely popular and later was used as a cadence during World War I. In 1905, Green created Green's Lake as a recreational place and as a water source for the railroad, and from 1905 through the 1940s families picnicked, swam, and fished there while churches held baptisms in the lake. George and Tempie Green raised four children, and after his death in 1937 he was buried in Buena Vista Cemetery. His work in the development of the rail line and the Bobo community remained an important part of Shelby County history.