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EL
CAMPO, TEXAS
Wharton County,
Texas Gulf Coast
Highway 59 and Highway 71
13 Miles SW of Wharton
About 65 Miles SW of Houston
52 Miles NE of Victoria
Population 10, 945
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"Prairie
Switch" of the original switching station, now on the town square
Photo courtesy George Shaffer, 2007 |
History in
a Pecan Shell
The town began life in the early 1880s as a switching point called
Prairie Switch on the New York, Texas and Mexican Railroad. The lights
of the tiny settlement could be seen for miles at night - giving it
the nickname ""Pearl of the Prairies."
Mexican cowboys started calling it El Campo and the name stuck in
1890. Thousands of head of cattle were shipped to markets in San
Antonio from the four huge ranches that surrounded the town -
including the Pierce Ranch.
The town was little more than a section house and a cattle-loading
chute before a store was built in 1889. This was followed by a post
office the following year but still the population was a mere 25 people
by 1892.
The town once became the second largest hay-shipping center in the
United States and made the most of newly introduced rice industry.
In the 1890s El Campo organized Swedish Lutheran and Methodist churches,
as well as Presbyterian and Baptist congregations. German Lutheran
and Catholic churches completed the inventory.
A fire in 1896 destroyed the town's business section which rebuilt
by 1900, only to be burned again a year later. The town got the message
and the second rebuilding was done with brick. El Campo acquired a
library in1901 - a year before they opened the first bank. The town
incorporated in 1905 and two years later the El Campo Ice and Water
Company provided electricity and ice. The El Campo Rice Milling Company
opened in 1903 and was used by seventy rice farms in 1904.
The 1910 population was 1,778, growing to 2.034 by 1930 and nearly
4,000 by 1941. Gas and oil were discovered in Wharton County in the
mid-1930s which stabilized the economy. It reached just over 6,216
in the early 1950s and by 1970 it was five citizens short of 10,000. |
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El Campo
town square
Photo courtesy George Shaffer, 2007 |
Former
bank building in El Campo
Photo courtesy George Shaffer, 2007 |
Rice
Farmers Coop
Photo courtesy George Shaffer, 2007 |
Rice
murals
Photo courtesy George Shaffer, 2007 |
Post
Office murals in El Campo
TE Photo, 2000 |
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