Hudspeth County Texas 
| 1830 | 1835 | 1840 | 1848 | 1850 | 1855 | 1860 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1870 | 1880 | 1890 | 1900 | 1910 | 1917 | LAST |
Click for
landmark & vanished town listings
ACALA, TEXAS. Acala is on the Rio Grande and State Highway 20, thirty-four miles northwest of Sierra Blanca near the Southern Pacific tracks in southwestern Hudspeth County. It was founded before 1925, when a post office was established with Mrs. Julia A. Vaughn as postmistress. In 1927 Acala had a population of fifty; two years later that figure had doubled. By the mid-1930s, however, the population had fallen to an estimated ten. It increased gradually over the next three decades, from an estimated seventy-five in the late 1930s to ninety in the late 1940s and 100 in the late 1950s. Subsequently, however, it fell again; in the late 1960s it was estimated at fifty and in the early 1970s at twenty-five, where it remained in 1990. Acala was named for the long-staple cotton of Mexican origin grown in the area; it is the site of numerous canals and wells dug for irrigation
.
.
.
.Allamoore
Hudspeth County, Texas
ALLAMOORE, TEXAS. Allamoore (Allamore, Carrizo), is a ranching community on the Missouri Pacific Railroad just north of Interstate 10 and U.S. Highway 80, twenty-two miles southeast of Sierra Blanca in southeastern Hudspeth County. A post office under the name Acme was established there in 1884 with Robert B. McGrew as postmaster. It closed in 1886, but a new one opened two years later under the name Allamoore, after the postmistress, Mrs. Alla R. Moore. At that time the community consisted of "mining and stock camps." In 1890 the town had 200 inhabitants. The Hazel Mine in nearby Culberson County was for several decades among the most productive silver and copper mines in Texas. The post office closed in 1895, but two years later a third post office, called Allamoore, was established. By 1914 the population of the settlement had fallen to ten, in the mid-1920s the population was estimated at twenty-five; by the late 1920s it was seventy-five. In the mid-1930s, when seventy pupils from the surrounding ranches attended the Allamoore school, the population was again estimated at twenty-five. A rock-crushing plant owned by Gifford-Hill and Company was operating five miles east of town in 1938. From the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s the population was estimated at seventy-five; it subsequently dropped to fifty. At that time Allamoore comprised scattered dwellings and a church. During the 1960s a local rancher reportedly paid a teacher to sit in the empty one-room schoolhouse, just in case a student happened to walk in. The Pioneer Talc Company opened at Allamoore in 1960 and the Westex Talc Company in 1971, but the latter was gone by the mid-1970s, and the Gifford-Hill rock crusher apparently ceased operation in the early 1980s. By 1988 the Allamoore school had the smallest enrollment of all Texas schools: only eight children from the ten families scattered throughout the district's 2,100 square miles attended.
.
.
.
.Arispe
Hudspeth County, Texas
ARISPE, TEXAS. Arispe, also known as La Valley, was five miles southeast of Sierra Blanca on the Missouri Pacific Railroad in an area that is now crossed by Interstate 10 and U.S. Highway 80 in south central Hudspeth County. The community was founded in 1885 as a railroad section house. A post office called La Valley operated from 1909 until 1911 with Mrs. Alice Auten as postmistress. The community had fifty-seven inhabitants. By the mid-1940s the estimated population numbered fewer than twenty-five.
.
.
.
.Dell City
Hudspeth County, Texas
DELL CITY, TEXAS. Dell City is a farming town at the intersection of Farm roads 1437 and 2249, fifty-three miles northeast of Sierra Blanca in northeastern Hudspeth County. The area had been primarily devoted to sheep and goat ranching until the discovery of large amounts of underground water. This discovery made possible the irrigation of some 40,000 acres and led to the founding of the town sometime before 1949, when a post office was established there with Dallas H. Thompson as postmaster. The estimated population of Dell City grew from 180 in the early 1950s to 360 in the mid-1950s. The number of residents climbed to 950 by the early 1960s but dropped to 714 by the end of the decade. In the early 1970s the estimated population declined to 383 but rose by the late 1970s to 475. Dell City had four churches and a municipal airport during the mid-1980s. The community's estimated population was 569 in the early 1990s; at that time the town had around thirty businesses. Among the crops raised in the area were long-staple cotton, onions, and tomatoes.
.
.
.
.Etholen, Texas
Hudspeth County, Texas
ETHOLEN, TEXAS. Etholen was on the Southern Pacific Railroad four miles west of Sierra Blanca in south central Hudspeth County. According to one source a post office had been opened and closed there before 1884, although other sources hold that the community was not established until around 1885. Etholen seems to have been little more than a railroad station; in 1945 its population was fewer than twenty-five, and it no longer appeared on maps of the area by the mid-1960s. The community was reportedly named for the Etholen Knobs, a nearby cluster of buttes.
.
.
.
.Finlay
Hudspeth County, Texas
FINLAY, TEXAS. Finlay was on the Southern Pacific Railroad seventeen miles northwest of Sierra Blanca in southwestern Hudspeth County. It was named for pioneer settler J. R. Finlay, who also gave his name to the mountain range northwest of the town. A local post office was established in 1890 but never officially opened. A second one was established in 1903, with Arthur S. Dowler as postmaster. In 1914 Finlay was described as "a rural post office on the Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio Railway," and grocer George W. Norsworthy had a store there. In the mid-1930s the estimated population of Finlay was twenty-five; by the late 1930s it had grown to seventy-five. The last available population estimates for Finlay date from the mid-1940s, when the town had about 100 inhabitants. By the early 1970s Finlay was only a stop on the railroad.
.
.
.
.Ft Quitman
Hudspeth County, Texas
Fort Quitman was eighty miles below El Paso and twenty miles southeast of the site of present-day McNary in far southern Hudspeth County. On Septem-ber 28, 1858, Capt. Arthur T. Lee and companies C and H, Eighth Infantry, established the post on a barren and sandy plain 400 yards east of the Rio Grande to protect travelers and the mail route from San Antonio to El Paso. It was named for Mexican War general John A. Quitman who had died on July 17. Federal troops evacuated Fort Quitman on April 5, 1861. During the Civil War the post was intermittently garrisoned by Confederate and Union detachments and quickly fell into disrepair. Capt. Henry Carroll and Company F, Ninth United States Cavalry, reoccupied the crumbling adobe buildings on January 1, 1868, and on February 25 orders from headquar-ters of the District of Texas reestablished the fort. Over the next decade companies and detachments of black soldiers of the Ninth Cavalry and the Twenty-fifth United States Infantry guarded the mails and scouted for hostile Indians. Fort Quitman had a reputation as one of the most uncomfortable military installations in Texas. Lydia Spencer Lane described it in 1869 as "forlorn and tumble-down" and was surprised to observe a sergeant, in full-dress uniform, jumping rope outside the guardhouse. "Surgeon John J. Culver, in 1870, called it "entirely unworthy of the name of fort, post, or station for United States troops." The adobe buildings had been stripped of all wood, roofs, doors, and window frames. "The dormitories of the barracks, having neither doors or windows, have abundant ventilation." The soil was to sandy and dry hot climate to cultivate a post garden. Milk and fresh vegetables had to be hauled in from San Elizario, El Paso, or San Ignacio, Chihuahua. Much time was spent repairing the buildings, which by 1876 consisted of barracks for two companies, five sets of double officers' quarters, an adjutant's office, a hospital, a guardhouse, two store-houses, a bakery, workshops, and wooden cavalry and quartermaster's stables. Fort Quitman was vacated on January 5, 1877, but was regarrisoned in 1880-82, during the campaign against the Apache chief Victorio as a subpost of Fort Davis. Despite the efforts of Capt. Nicholas Nolan and troopers of the Tenth United States Cavalry, during the summer of 1880 Victorio's warriors crossed and recrossed the Rio Grande in the vicinity of the post. On August 9, Mescaleros attempting to return to their reservation in New Mexico attacked a stagecoach near the fort, mortally wounding Maj. Gen. James J. Byrne, an employee of the Texas and Pacific Railway. Although Victorio was killed in Mexico in the fall of 1880, Fort Quitman continued to be garrisoned through April 1882. The post was abandoned later that year, partly because it was not on a railroad. Fort Hancock (originally Fort Rice) was established in 1882 at a better site nearby. Today only a cemetery remains near the site of Fort Quitman.
.
.
.
.Camp Rice
Hudspeth County, TexasCamp Rice, [Fort Hancock] a military installation established on April 15, 1881, was officially declared a subpost of Fort Davis on September 14, 1882 to defend against Indians and bandits from across the Rio Grande. On July 9, 1882, it was moved from its initial location six miles northwest of Fort Quitman to a site on the Southern Pacific Railroad. The next month it was moved again to higher ground nearby. Commanding general William T. Sherman believed the fort would be permanent because of its proximity to the railroad, and it was one of the few Texas forts to be purchased by the United States War Department (for $2,370 in 1883) It was discontinued on October 4, 1895. The name came from an old railroad Camp called Rice Station. Rice was a cattleman in the area. When the Fort was built it was called Camp Rice and renamed Fort Hancock in May 1886, in honor of Maj. Gen.Winfield Scott Hancock, who had died on February 9 of that year. A post office was established with Albert Warren as postmaster. In 1887 a new railroad depot was built and by 1890 the town had a population of 200, a general store, a hotel, and a meat market. During the late 1980s Fort Hancock had five churches and two schools. The army abandoned the fort in 1895, and by 1914 the population of the town had dropped to fifty. In the late 1920s its population was estimated at 400 and by the 1940s it rose to 500. By the early 1970s it was an estimated 400 and remained at that level through the early 1990s. Capt. Theodore A. Baldwin and Company I, Tenth United States Cavalry, formed the first garrison of the independent post. Thereafter, it was generally garrisoned by mixed detachments of infantry and cavalry rarely numbering more than sixty men. These troops patrolled the Rio Grande to prevent illegal crossings by smugglers, Mexican bandits, or insurrectionists. Post commanders included ethnologist and author Capt. John G. Bourke (June-August 1885) and Maj. S. B. M. Young (August 1885-November 1887). Although it was one of the first western posts to have a central water system pumped from a shallow well, the sewer system consisted of cesspools near each building. It had its own warehouses, guardhouse, bakery, and twelve bed hospital. Soldiers of the Third Cavalry constructed dikes to protect the post from overflow from the Rio Grande. On the night of May 31, 1886, large Mexican dike 2 miles up the river was washed away and was spreading over the whole valley. The break was repaired but four nights later a heavy gale pushed water over the retaining wall and flooded the entire post to a depth of two to three feet. In the mid-afternoon of February 14, 1889, the carpenter and blacksmith shops were burned, and on March 30 the blacksmith and wheelwright's shop followed. Fires on May 4 and May 11 burned the post gymnasium,the quartermaster's stable, and the haystack. Major Thomas Hamilton Logan was in command of the post in 1889. Logan was sent to Fort Hancock from Montana were he protected the people from the Indians. It is unknown how long he was the commander of the post but probably until 1891. By this time Fort Hancock had virtually outlived its usefulness. It was turned over to the Department of the Interior on November 1, 1895, and abandoned by the army on December 6. A marker on U.S. Highway 80, fifty-two miles southeast of El Paso, marks the site. A handwritten note by Elise Bush, the second postmaster of Fort Hancock. Dated January 1, 1914. "Jan 1, 1914 - What is now Fort Hancock consisted of the depot about 6 mexican huts & 1 row of tents for the soldiers where the postoffice is now located. There were no cars no electicity there was no highway & nothing but mesquite bushes where the cross roads stores are now. The original Fort was mostly in ruins at the time - There were about 6 large 2story buildings still standing. They were constructed of red brick & the gov. kept an old man there as caretaker for several years. His name was Louis Kenneth. The postoffice was in a little one room hut just across the tracks on the south side. The postmaster was Mr. Ross - where Hares store now stands was a pile of rocks & adobe, where the old building has collasped. The school building was a one room adobe south of the depot - a Miss Barclay was teaching, she had about 6 scholars. There were only 3 american women here, and about 6 men - except the soldiers of which there were about 100 - Until the World War began & they stationed about 250 men here - They were changed the first of each month & a new troop sent out - They began erecting the New Fort Hancock buildings about 1919. "
.
.
.
.McNary
Hudspeth County, Texas
MCNARY, TEXAS. McNary, formerly called Nulo, is at the intersection of Interstate Highway 10 and State Highway 20, two miles from the Rio Grande and twenty-three miles west of Sierra Blanca in southwestern Hudspeth County. Nulo was settled in 1921, and the name was changed to McNary in September 1923, when it was made an agency station on the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway. The town was named for James G. McNary, a businessman, and was a cotton-shipping point for the Algodon Plantation. A cotton gin, a service-station garage, and a general store soon opened. A post office opened in 1926. In 1936 the estimated population of McNary was seventy-five. The water supply from Elephant Butte Dam and the Lower Rio Grande irrigation project made for rich farmland in the area. Crops besides cotton included alfalfa, grain feed, and cantaloupes. By 1948 the town had a factory, four other businesses, a number of scattered dwellings, and a population of 300. In 1961 McNary had only two businesses, the post office, and an estimated population of 250. Drought in later years hurt the town, and eventually the loading platform was torn down and the depot was moved to Sierra Blanca. The post office was closed in June 1979. Two businesses closed the next year, and the population was estimated to be less than fifty. In 1990 the population was reported at 250.
.
.
.
.Sierra Blanco
Hudspeth County, Texas
SIERRA BLANCA, TEXAS. Sierra Blanca, the county seat of Hudspeth County, is at the intersection of Ranch Road 1111, Interstate Highway 10, and U.S. Highway 80, eighty miles southeast of El Paso in the south central part of the county. It is also at the junction of the Southern Pacific and Missouri Pacific railroads. The town owes its existence to the competition that surrounded the construction of the nation's second transcontinental rail link. Collis P. Huntington's Southern Pacific line began building eastward from the Pacific in 1869, while Jay Gould's Texas and Pacific Railway began building westward from Central Texas in 1872. By November 25, 1881, the two crews had built to within ten miles of each other, and neither had any intention of yielding to the other. On the next day Huntington and Gould agreed to a compromise, and on December 15 Gould drove a silver spike to join the two roads seven miles southeast of Sierra Blanca Mountain. Transcontinental service began the next day. The town of Sierra Blanca, the site of the historic meeting, quickly grew into the most important commercial center in the area, providing stockyards and a railhead for local ranchers and serving as a shipping center for salt and other minerals. A post office opened in 1882 with James McFee as postmaster, but closed later that same year. In 1884 the population of the community was 126, and the next year the post office reopened. By 1892 the town had 200 inhabitants, two hotels, and a general store. Its population grew to 350 by 1914, when it also had a hotel, a news company, two general stores, and two cattle breeders. By the mid-1920s the town had 600 residents. During the late 1920s the population rose to an estimated 800, but it had dropped to 500 by theearly 1930s, when thirty-two businesses were reported in Sierra Blanca. By the mid-1930s the population was estimated at 723, and by the late 1940s, at 850. It remained at 850 until the late 1960s, when it briefly rose to 900. It dropped again in the early 1970s to 600; by the mid-1970s the population was estimated at 700, and it was still reported at that level in 1990. During the late 1980s Sierra Blanca had two churches and a school. A distinctive feature of Sierra Blanca is the fact that half the town goes by Mountain Time, under which the rest of Hudspeth County and El Paso County were placed by congressional legislation in 1921, while the other half goes by Central Time, as does the rest of Texas. In the mid-1950s the railroads and post office went by Central Time, but the county courthouse and schools used Mountain Time (as did the town's bars, so as to stay open later at night). In 1964 a waitress in a Sierra Blanca cafe told a visiting newspaperman that one tavern was supposedly closed down for a week because it opened in the morning on Central Time and closed at night on Mountain Time. In the early 1990s a waste-disposal company based in Oklahoma purchased more than 90,000 acres near Sierra Blanca, and in the summer of 1992 trains began arriving with treated sewage from New York City; an average of 225 tons a day was dumped there. In February 1992 the state of Texas selected Sierra Blanca as the site of a low-level radioactive-waste depository. Many area citizens were critical of the sludge dump and of the proposed radioactive-waste facility, citing the potential health hazards, and in the mid-1990s a local citizens' group was trying to fight the disposal projects.
.
.
.
.Information Needed
Ft Quitman Cemetery - The only thing left of Fort Quitman.
Mile High - have found nothing to date about this town or place.
Old Patterson Place - have found nothing to date about this town or place.
Scotts Crossing - have found nothing to date about this town or place.
|
|
Links last checked 1/18/05
|
 |
|
|
Site map | © 2024 Mark Hudspeth | Contact |