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History
in a Post Office Box
Settlement dates from the 1850s but things
didn’t really get started until the railroad arrived in 1882 to exploit the timber
in the region.
A Houston company set up a sawmill there and the community
that grew around it became known as Stryker, after the mill’s manager.
A post office opened under that name in 1885 and with the available lumber, a
school, church and residences were built. As the timber played out, the people
moved on and by the 1890s the sawmill closed shop. By 1913 the post was discontinued
and the town sat in limbo for five years – without a post office and unsure of
their name.
In 1918 a new post office was applied for and application after
application was rejected by the postal authorities as unsuitable. Impressed by
the persistence of the populace and wishing to end the naming process, the Post
Office Department simply assigned the town a name. Pluck.
Another
story attributes the name to a man who complained that the rough life there required
“pluck” from the residents. The population remained below 30 people and the second
post office closed in 1953. Eventually the town disappeared from maps and today
is a mere footnote in Polk County history. |
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1907
Polk County Postal Map showing Stryker
(Above
"K" in "POLK")
Courtesy Texas General Land Office |
| Texas
Escapes, in
its purpose to preserve historic, endangered and vanishing Texas, asks that anyone
wishing to share their local history, stories, and vintage/historic photos
of their town, please contact
us. | |
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