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Vintage
photo courtesy Library of Congress
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History
in a Pecan Shell
In an old familiar story, Waverly, Texas
was once content being simply Waverly, Texas.
Then came the railroad.
The Houston and Great Northern Railroad Company
came through the area and in those times railroads
didn’t have the best of reputations. Locals thought twice about granting a right-of-way
and turned the railroad's offer down.
In the second act of the old familiar
story, the railroad came through ten miles west of town and established “Waverly
Station" in 1870. Naturally the people in business and other residents were drawn
to the new town to maintain contact with the rest of the world. The station became
“New Waverly.”
In the late 1800s Polish families were recruited from
Europe and became tenant farmers in the region. Poles also settled in towns like
Brenham, Thurber,
Malakoff , Palestine
and a cluster of communities around Panna
Maria SE of San Antonio.
An abbreviated timeline of significant events:
In 1873 a
post office was granted.
In 1884 the town had 150 residents.
By 1896 the
population had reached 250.
In 1900 the town had a healthy population of
500.
By mid-century it had declined somewhat to just over 400.
The population
was about 600 in the 60s – 700 in the 70s, 800 in the 80s, and 900 in the 90s.
The economy is still driven by lumber – an industry that has influenced New
and Waverly, Texas, and Elmira for over
100 years.
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St
Joseph's Catholic Church
New Waverly, Texas |
| Photo
courtesy Mildred L. Brown, September 2007 |
| Photo
courtesy Mildred L. Brown, September 2007 |
Old
Waverly’s fade into oblivion may be short of tragic elements, but two separate
stories were enough to have it included in the late Ed Sayer’s Ghosts of Texas.
When one considers the cottage industry that spooks and spirits have become in
recent years, it’s an accomplishment to be included as one of the fifty-odd stories
in what is considered to be the first volume written on Texas Ghosts.
The
sites of the stories are several miles apart in what remains today of the dense
forest that was laboriously pushed back by slave labor to plant cotton.
Click here for the stories> |
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