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Downtown
Hubbard
Photo courtesy Barclay Gibson,
April 2006 |
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History in
a Pecan Shell
Once known as Slap-out, Texas or McLainsboro, Texas, the town was
established around 1860. It was renamed after former Governor Richard
B. Hubbard around 1881 when the St. Louis Southwestern Railroad of
Texas built a depot. The post office was granted, the first newspaper
published and a bank (private) opened all in the year 1881. The town
was later added to the route of the Trinity and Brazos Valley Railroad,
making it a two-railroad town.
In 1895 while drilling for drinking water, the city hit hoit mineral
water - making the town a (minor) resort town. From its earliest reported
population of 250 (1884), it had doubled by the early 1890s and was
2,700 by the mid-1920s.
The Great Depression, WWII
and the decline of water resorts took its toll on Hubbard. The population
was only 1,772 by the early 1950s - increasing to 1,872 by the late
1980s and then declining to the current 1,586. Hubbard had once been
the home to novelist and Baptist minister J. Frank Norris (The
Octopus) and the town lost some downtown buildings to a 1973 tornado.
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Church
Photo courtesy Barclay Gibson,
April 2006 |
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Volunteer
Fire Department and water tower
Photo courtesy Barclay Gibson,
April 2006 |
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