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PAPALOTE,
TEXAS
Bee County, South
Texas
Highway 181
18 miles S of Beeville
3 miles N of the San Patricio County Line
Population:
70 (est) 1990
Papalote
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Beeville
Hotels
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A closed
gas station
Photo courtesy Ken Rudine, August 2007 |
History
in a Pecan Shell
Papalote is regarded as one of Bee County's oldest communities. Settled
on Papalote Creek, the name is believed to either be a Karankawa word
for "kite" or a colloquial Mexican-Spanish term for windmill.
Like settlers in neighboring San Patricio County, early Papalotians
were immigrants from Ireland settling on Spanish grants.
Prior to 1857 the town was actually three separate settlements:
Lower Papalote, a.k.a. Steenville was named after local storekeeper
R. W. Steen. This settlement had the advantage of having the post
office.
Central Papalote, a.k.a. Cravensville developed around a lumberyard
run by Felix Hart and named to honor a local family with the surname
Craven.
Upper Papalote, a.k.a. Murdock Place had another store run
by a man named Luke Hart. This settlement was on the south side of
the creek.
By the mid-1880s the three Papalote communities united.
Merging benefited all and by 1872 Papalote had a doctor, grist mill,
butcher, sadler, and several saloons.
The railroad (the San Antonio and Aransas Pass) arrived in 1886 and
laid tracks on land donated by a local named Hatch. He also sold land
to the German-American Land Company who resold it to settlers from
Iowa and Hawaii (!) in five acre tracts. Intended to be orange groves,
hopes were dashed when a freeze devastated the crop.
1910 brought a small land boom and a few more businesses, but the
hurricane of 1919 was another discouragement. From a population of
52 in 1890, Papalote blossomed to 134 residents in 1904 which declined
in the thirties. It has since risen to 70 residents - a number it
has used since the late 1960s.
The detailed TxDoT County map for Bee County shows a cemetery on the
south side of Papalote Creek (Upper Papalote). |
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Papalote
Creek Historical Marker
Photo courtesy Ken
Rudine, August 2007 |
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