The Pinkston Community was established on land owned by Doctor Alexander Colvin Sloan, who was born in 1843 in Montgomery, Alabama, served in the Civil War, and migrated to Navarro County around 1870. In 1887, Sloan sold property to the St. Louis, Arkansas and Texas Railway Company, which intended to build a track from Corsicana to Hillsboro and completed a branch by 1888. By 1894, Sloan sold property to D.K. McCammon, who built a cotton gin that further aided development of the settlement then known as Sloan Spur. By 1895, the community had a post office and was soon renamed for Lucian A. Pinkston, a locomotive engineer for the railroad and later a part owner of the settlement's cotton gin. At its peak, Pinkston had a blacksmith shop, a store, and about 75 residents. It had no schools or churches on the townsite, but students attended nearby schools in the Little Brair, Fish Tank, White's Chapel, Black Hills, and Barry school districts, and those school buildings often also served as places of worship. Pinkston began to decline as some residents moved to the larger community of Corsicana. In 1932, a highway bypassed Pinkston, leading to business closures, and in 1940 the rail line was abandoned, further weakening the community's economy. Depression, drought, and low cotton prices also contributed to the rural settlement's decline. By the 1980's, only three buildings were left in the area, all being used as barns, and today nothing remains of the historic Pinkston Community.