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History
in a Pecan Shell:
DeWitt County’s first post office opened
in 1846 in a store four miles north of present-day Cuero. This town was also called
Cuero, after the creek of the same name. The Gulf, Western Texas and Pacific Railroad
chose Cuero as a stop since it was equidistant between the port of Indianola
and San Antonio. The railroad
arrived in January of 1873 and by 1876 Cuero took the title of county seat from
the railroad-deficient town of Clinton.
Hurricanes in 1875 and 1886 crippled
and then killed Indianola
– creating an influx of people and businesses. It was the shot-in-the-arm that
the fledgling town needed – and it had long term effects.
The town suffered
a devastating fire in the Spring of 1879 and lawlessness threatened to get a foothold
until local law-enforcement was bolstered by the Home Protection Club, a police
auxiliary.
In 1886 the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway (SAAP) added
a line to Houston. Cuero had the potential
to rival Victoria
with its potential exploitation of the Guadalupe
River, but the river proved not to be navigable. The following year Cuero
had a population of 2,500 and what seemed to be a limitless future.
The
town had the economic boost of a railroad machine shop and a large textile factory
with steam-powered looms. Cuero had one of the states largest cottonseed oil mills
in the 1890s and its long-running turkey industry shipped birds nationwide for
the first four decades of the 20th century.
Cuero’s population reached
3,671 by the mid-1920s and the hydroelectric dam built on the Guadalupe
River was once the largest in Texas. By the mid-1940s
the population rose to 5,474 and reached 7,498 in the next decade. Cuero was the
state’s largest shipper of cattle in 1942 and 1943.
In the late 1960s
Cuero reached its high-water mark with 7,800 residents. In the mid-1980s it had
declined to just over 7,000. The county
courthouse was restored in the mid 1950s and has just completed another restoration
in 2008. The DeWitt County Historical Museum shares space with the chamber of
commerce in the former post office. The population was 6,571 for the 2000 census. |
A
Victorian strip on Cuero's Highway 183 (Alt 77).
Photo courtesy Stephen
Michaels, July 2008 |
"Making
the best use of a narrow alley since 1879."
TE Photo, July 2008 |
A
stone bouquet graces a former drugstore.
Photo courtesy Stephen
Michaels, July 2008 |
A
familiar device on the former post office.
TE photo, July 2008 |
Ghost
Sign for the benefit of the "pedestrian trade."
Photo courtesy Stephen
Michaels, July 2008 |
Squares on rectangles: A rare 7up Ghost Sign
Photo courtesy Stephen
Michaels, July 2008 |
Yet
another restoration in progress.
TE Photo, July 2008 |
Runge
and Company: One of the many businesses that relocated from Indianola
TE
Photo, July 2008 |
| A
downtown threshold. TE photo , July 2008 |
| Cuero,
Texas main street, 1910 postcard | |
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