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Dewville
History in a Pecan ShellNamed
for two brothers, John and Thomas Dew, the town was once on the Old San Antonio
Road.
It was halfway between the towns of Albuquerque and Sandies Chapel.
A post office opened in 1894 (closing in 1955) and in 1897 the Methodist Church
from Sandies Chapel was moved to Dewville. A two-story school was built in 1901
and in 1907 the school took in the Sandies Chapel students.
The population
was 50 by 1914 - a figure that it kept into the 1960s. Nixon slowly siphoned off
the towns population and by 1970 there were only 15 people left.
The
population remains estimated at 15 and the Methodist church and two cemeteries
are nearby (Dewville and Sandies Chapel). |
Dewville,
Texas Historical Marker
Marker Title: Ghost Town of Dewville
Year Marker Erected: 1971
Marker
Text
DEWVILLE, TEXAS. Dewville is at the intersection of a country road
and Farm Road 1117, near the southwestern corner of Gonzales County twenty-five
miles southwest of Gonzales. It is on the Old San Antonio Roadqv between the sites
of two defunct communities, Albuquerque and Sandies Chapel. Dewville is named
for two brothers, John Frank and Thomas M. Dew, who opened a steam-powered gin
on the site in 1885. A Baptist church was organized there about 1890. The community
was granted a post office in 1894, and in 1897 Sandies Chapel Methodist Church
was moved to Dewville. A two-story school building was erected in the community
in 1901, and Sandies Chapel School was consolidated with Dewville in 1907. In
1914 Dewville had a population of fifty, a gin, a general store, and telephone
service. Its population was estimated at fifty-five from 1925 until the 1960s.
At different times the community had a blacksmith shop, a meat market, and an
Odd Fellows Hall. In 1940 Dewville comprised a post office, two churches, a school,
a cemetery, and scattered dwellings. The post office closed in 1955. The community
slowly lost population, as the nearby railroad community of Nixon prospered, and
the population of Dewville dropped to forty in the 1960s and to fifteen by 1970.
In 1990 the population was still estimated at fifteen, and the Methodist church
and a cemetery were at the site.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Gonzales County Historical Commission, History of Gonzales County
(Dallas: Curtis, 1986).
- Gary E. McKee | |
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