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LANE CITY, TEXASWharton
County, Texas
Gulf Coast
Highway 60
3 Miles E of the Colorado River
10
Miles SE of Wharton
15 Miles N
of Bay City
Population:
111 (since 1980)
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History in a Pecan
Shell
Jonathan Lane, president of the Cane Belt Railroad is the town’s
namesake. In 1900 the railroad ran from its Wharton County terminus (Lane City)
to Eagle Lake (Colorado
County). Lane had purchased some 25,000 acres of land from fabled rancher Shanghai
Pierce. This land was resold a few years later to a land company that recruited
settlers from northern states to come to Texas and
become rice farmers. Financing was available at generous terms and a substantial
pumping system using water from the Colorado River was built by the Bay Prairie
Irrigation Company.
Jonathan Lane’s brother T. W. Lane, managed the system
after it had become the Southern Irrigation Company by 1904. The plant was said
to be the largest of it kind in the world. A post office opened in 1901 under
the name of Arnim in the Arnim-Lane store. This partnership also operated a store
in Flatonia, Texas which is still
standing in 2008. In February of 1911 the town was renamed Lane City. Lane City
peaked in 1909 when the economy was almost entirely based on rice farming. The
town had all essential businesses and displayed its wealth through its “skyline”
which included a rare two-story railroad depot, a two-story pharmacy, a two-story
hotel as well as a three-story rice mill/ office and warehouse.
In July
of 1909, the town was hit by a severe hurricane which swept through the area,
demolishing each of the multi-story buildings and ruining the rice crop. The irrigation
system was damaged and the town never recovered from the storm.
Rice cultivation
has since been replaced by crops of corn, cotton
and cattle feed although the old irrigation lines are still in use. The post office
/ store / gas station were still operating in 1990 although the 1903 Methodist
church was demolished in 1984.
The Lane City school merged with the Wharton
ISD in 1957. A Black Baptist church was reportedly still active in 1990. From
a 1920 population of just 150 residents, Lane City peaked in 1960 with 200 residents
which declined to just 111 in 1980 – the figure that’s still used on the 2008
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