| Scarlett
may have had a fever named after her, but these women/girls had Texas towns named
after them. Railroad
expansions in Texas created towns. The towns needed naming and many times the
names were in honor of railroad executive's wives, daughters, mistresses or maybe
even a Harvey Girl or two - who knows? South
of Houston the towns of Louise,
Edna and Inez were all related to railroad investor Count Telferner.
The Count ran out of female relatives, or he decided enough was enough, for he
named one town Telferner. In
the blackland prairie between Waco
and Dallas there's another
string of these towns. These towns have shared common rises and falls, ebbs and
flows, trials and tribulations and for this reason (and their feminine names)
we link them together here. Our sources are all short on personal traits and descriptions.
We have no idea of how they looked or what their personalities were like. Only
their names remain. A
quick look at a map of this region of Texas will show that there are more towns
here with women's names. There's Irene (Hill County) and Lillian (Johnson
County). Irene (we always thought she should've married into the Goodnight family)
was named before the railroad came through, so she's not in our sisterhood. Lillian
(the town) has an unusual story in that it was named after two Lillians - wives
of local men who owned land along the railroad. So in this part of Texas you have
seven women who loaned their names to five towns - all of them along the rails
of the International-Great Northern Railroad.
Click on any
of these three towns - they are all linked together, just as they are in history.
Venus
| Maypearl | Penelope
If you are one of those people who
are intrigued by names, click here for a review of the endlessly entertaining
Muleshoe
and More by Bill and Clare Bradfield. (Ordering information included)
January, 2001
©John Troesser
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