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Editor's
Note: We received "Ghost Towns of Runnels County" as an e-mail in 2004 from its
author Alton O'Neil Jr. Mr. O'Neil asked if would include its contents with our
town coverage.
Mr.
O'Neil's opus has been published in Runnels County and bears the following dedication:
"This booklet is dedicated to the memory of RANKIN PACE. He is the person who
got me started on ghost towns at one of the Runnels County Historical meetings
we had at Nancy Parker’s cabin near Content."
The ghost
towns included are (in alphabetical order):
Benoit aka Norwood, Blue Gap,
Content aka Tokeen, Crews, Drasco, Hatchel, Marie, Maverick, Norton, Olfin, Oxien,
Picketville, Pumphrey, Runnels City, Truitt, Valley View, Walthall, and Wilmeth
aka Mazeland. |
1907
Runnels County map showing 12 of the 18 ghost towns
Postal map courtesy of
Texas General Land Office |
1.
Benoit / Norwood, Texas
Benoit was on U.S. Highway 67 and the Santa Fe Railroad twelve miles northeast
of Ballinger in east central
Runnels County. The community was started in 1886 and named Norwood, but with
the establishment of a local post office in March 29, 1906 it was renamed for
J. Benoit, an early settler. The first postmaster was W. F. Hill who opened the
first store in 1912 and was the last postmaster. At its peak Benoit had two stores,
a gin, a blacksmith shop, and a one-room schoolhouse. The store changed hands
several times and was owned by a Mr. Nutt when the highway was built; it came
up to the stores doorstep. Mr Nutt sold the store to the highway department and
the store was razed to make way for the highway. The population was 100 in 1940,
but by 1950 the settlement had disappeared. |
2.
Blue Gap, Texas
Blue Gap was near the Coleman county line twenty-five
miles northeast of Ballinger
in extreme northeastern Runnels County. A log post office, established there in
February 1878 with James K. Paulk as postmaster, was the first in the county;
it was, in fact, founded before the county was organized in 1880. The townsite
was named for a pass through nearby Table Mountain. For a brief period Blue Gap
was a stop on the Round Rock-Buffalo Gap stage line. The community was short-lived,
however, and its post office was discontinued in March 1881. The old post office
building was restored in the 1960s, and a Texas Historical Commission marker was
dedicated at the site in 1966. |
3.
Content aka Tokeen, Texas
Content, near
Ranch Road 382 fourteen miles northeast of Winters in northeastern Runnels County,
was founded by storekeeper Daniel W. Hale in 1881 and named by him "for the contentment
of this valley." Hale became the first postmaster in 1882. Content had a school
in 1882 and a hotel in 1888. At some time it had several stores, two gins, a lime
kiln, and a blacksmith shop. In 1890 Content was the county's second largest town,
with 200 people. The post office name was changed to Tokeen in 1905. The Santa
Fe Railroad extension missed Content in 1909, and most residents moved to Goldsboro.
The post office was closed in 1916, and after that the name was changed back to
Content. The settlement had a population of twenty-five in 1940 and 1960. In 1970
there were only three houses left. |
4.
Crews, Texas
Crews, Texas is located at
the junction of Farm roads 53 and 382 in northeastern Runnels County. Various
names were suggested for the town when the post office was established in 1892.
One of the more popular names was Tillery, in honor of Richard Tillery a local
sheepherder and fiddler who had a beard over five feet long. After some debate
the name chosen for the town would be Crews for C. R. Crews, a Ballinger businessman.
In 1892 J. D. Wise and a Mr. Broughton established a post office and store in
Crews, with Wise as postmaster. The first school was held in the home of Betty
Craig Sims. In addition to being the school teacher, she also rode to Glen Cove
to get the mail. In 1888 a school was built a mile northeast of Crews. It had
a dirt floor and split log benches and was referred to as the Pig Pen. A Mr. Dan
Fannin was teacher. A frame building was built nearer town in 1890 and was called
Lone Star. The Reverend Lockhart was the teacher there. In 1905 the school was
move to Crews and it consisted of two rooms. A four-room brick school took its
place in 1922. In 1930 the Dietrz school was consolidated with Crews and seven
teachers were employed. A gymnasium was erected in 1940. The school was consolidated
with others in 1948. Crews had many doctor through the years. The ones most popular
were Dr. F.M. Hale, Dr. C.A. Watson and Dr. R.E.Burrus. In 1907 Dr Hale started
a telephone system with the switchboard at his home and his wife as operator.
At one time Crews had eleven business firms and two churches. The Methodist church
was organized in 1890 and the Baptist in 1894. In 1922 the community's post office
closed. Crews had one business and 150 residents in 1940. The Baptist church disbanded
in 1968. In 1970 the Methodist church was all that remained of Crews. |
5.
Drasco, Texas
Drasco, in north central
Runnels County, was once called County Line because of its proximity to the Taylor
county line. The community had to change its name when it got a post office because
there was another place by that name in Texas. After other names were turned down
also, a name composed of letters taken from the various names submitted by residents
was formed. This name was Drasco. The post office was granted in 1909, but was
discontinued in 1911. A school was started in 1903. In February of 1903 a Union
Sunday School, composed of Methodists and Baptists. The Methodists organized in
1904 and built their first church in 1912. The Baptist organized November of 1907.
They built their first building in 1908. As of today both these churches have
been disbanded. The population of Drasco reportedly never exceeded thirty. By
1940 it had a population of fifteen and one store. The 1982 county highway map
showed two churches and several businesses at Drasco, which was still listed as
a community in 1990. |
6.
Hatchel, Texas
Hatchel, on U.S. Highway
83 in central Runnels County, was originally named Vogelsang for Otto Vogelsang,
a local settler. With the establishment of a post office in 1904, it was named
for E. W. Hatchel, a storekeeper and the community's first postmaster. The Abilene
and Southern Railway reached Hatchel in 1909, and soon the community comprised
more than eight businesses, including a depot, cattle pens, and a gin. The first
school was built one mile north of Hatchel and was called Bowman. Sometime after
1920 a two-story rock school building was erected east of the railroad near downtown
Hatchel. A Baptist church was also erected near the school. The town declined,
and by the 1970s it had lost its post office. The population of Hatchel was reported
as fifty in 1940 and as sixteen in 1980 and 1990. |
7.
Marie, Texas
Marie, in west central Runnels
County on a county road just south of Farm Road 384, was named for the wife of
Walter (Buck) Gentry, a local landowner, when a post office was established there
in 1906. Walter C. Bass was the storekeeper and first postmaster. A gin was built
in 1904 and operated until 1916. A school started at Marie in 1901. A Woodman
Hall was built above the School. The building was also used by the churches. A
Baptist Church was organized in 1903 and later a Methodist church was started
when the Baptist dissolved in 1916. In 1916 a new two-teacher school was built;
it was moved to Bronte in 1938. The post office was discontinued June 14, 1941.
Around 1940 Marie had a population of twenty and one store. The rock store building
and several foundations are still standing. In the last few years the store has
been redone and is being lived in. Also a new home has been built on the old townsite.
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8.
Maverick, Texas
Maverick, on State Highway
158 in western Runnels County, was named for Samuel Augustus Maverick, who owned
land in the area. The post office was established in postmaster Marion Cobb's
store in 1883. Later the community was moved a mile east. A school was started
for Maverick residents in 1889. It was moved to Norton in 1937. At its peak Maverick
had three stores, three churches, two gas stations, a barbershop, a Woodmen of
the World hall, and three churches. In 1940 its population was sixty-nine. In
1980 the town had thirty-one residents, several homes, an abandoned church, a
schoolhouse, and a store. The population remained the same in 1990. |
9.
Norton, Texas
Norton, on Farm Road 383
in west central Runnels County, was named for George W. Norton, who owned the
townsite land. The post office opened in 1894 with Marion A. Wilkerson as postmaster.
The first houses were built in 1901, and in 1902 the post office was moved. A
school began operation in 1901, as did the first store, built by Robert Turner.
Businesses included a gin and a bank which operated from 1923 to 1930. In 1912
a cyclone killed one resident and damaged buildings, and in 1929 a fire caused
extensive property damage. At one time Norton had four different churches; a Baptist,
a Methodist, a Church of Christ, and a Presbyterian. In 1968 the Norton School
burned and the high school students were sent to surrounding schools. The elementary
school was rebuilt but has since been closed. As of 2004 the Post Office remains
open. Norton has remained a small town serving the surrounding rural area. Until
the 1930s its population did not exceed fifty. In 1940 the town had a population
of 120 and five businesses. The population was seventy-six in 1980 and in 1990.
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10.
Olfen, Texas
Olfen, ten miles north of the
confluence of the Colorado and Concho rivers in Runnels County, is a German Catholic
community. In the early 1890s German Catholics who had immigrated to Colorado,
Fayette, and other counties in Southeast Texas from 1846 to 1890 looked toward
West Texas for farmland, a healthy climate, and a place to establish a Catholic
environment. By the 1890s the railroad had built as far as Ballinger on the Colorado
River. Bernard Matthiesen, from Ellinger in Fayette County, went by train to Ballinger
in June 1891 and again in October 1891 by horse and wagon to look for farmland.
In 1893 he bought land and moved his wife Elizabeth (Hoelscher) and family to
what is now Olfen. In 1901 Matthiesen and Willy Glass wrote to Bishop John Anthony
Forest in San Antonio and obtained permission to build a school, to be used also
as a church. Father Frank Maas was the first pastor. The community was first called
Fussy Creek, then Maas, and finally Olfen, after Olfen in Westphalia. The first
mass in the church-school was the wedding mass of Bernard Niehues and Amalia Matthiesen.
The new bride, given the privilege of naming the church, chose the name St. Boniface,
for a popular German saint. The community grew quickly. In 1909 Father Frank Garmann,
who had succeeded Father Maas, built a new church. In 1921 a group of men from
outside Olfen, whipped up by the anti-German sentiment during and after World
War I, took Father Joseph Meiser from the rectory, intending to tar and feather
him. Unknown to them the housekeeper, who had managed to conceal herself, telephoned
parishioners, and within minutes a caravan of cars was in pursuit. The men, seeing
them, pounded on Father Meiser and shoved him out of the car, giving up the plan
to tar and feather him. The 1909 church burned to the ground on January 15, 1922.
The people immediately got to work and in ten months built a large and beautiful
Romanesque church, dedicated on November 16, 1922. The community was still listed
in 1990. |
11.
Oxien, Texas
In 1900, the heirs of John
Harris of Galveston offered for lease a league of land in the southeast part of
Runnels County. This area was to become known as the Oxien Community. On July
27, 1905 a post office was opened with W.W. McKissack as postmaster. The mail
was brought from Talpa three times a week at first; when the town grew the mail
was brought daily. At one time Oxien consisted of a cotton gin, a general store
with post office, a telephone switchboard, and a filling station. In later years
an another store and filling station were opened. Oxien’s school was built in
1909. In 1913 the Oxien school and the Dietz school consolidated. The combined
school was relocated on the Jarm Morrison place. In 1920 a larger building was
erected. After this the school was know as the Dietz School District No 31. In
1930 this school was consolidated with Crews. In the early days church was held
in the school house. In 1924 the Baptist Church was organized and a building built.
It disbanded in 1937. The post office closed in 1913. The town site is marked
with a few brick and rock foundations. |
12.
Picketville, Texas
First civilian
settlement in Runnels County. Founded 1862 by frontiersmen whose picket houses
and corrals gave place its name. It was located near the mouth of Elm Creek in
the vicinity of present day Ballinger. Original settlers included Mr. and Mrs.
John W. Guest and three sons; Henry and R. K. Wylie, their cowboys and Negro servant;
Mrs. Felicia Gordon and five sons. In 1862, "Rich" Coffey's family also moved
here. Indian hostilities of Civil War years (1861-65) caused these ranchers to
band together for protection. In 1866, they left with cattle for open range. Their
picket corrals later penned the trail herds of John Hittson, John and Joseph Henderson,
and others. |
13.
Pumphrey, Texas
Pumphrey is located
in north central Runnels County on Farm Road 1677, ten miles northwest of Winters.
It was settled in the 1890s and was originally called New Hope. It had a school
in 1900 which grew to a four room concrete building by 1949, when all classed
were transferred to Winters. The town was granted a post office on October 4,
1901 and the name changed from New Hope to Pumphrey for a local man, either W.
M. Pumphrey or Lewis Pumphrey. At the peak of its prosperity Pumphrey had two
general stores, a drugstore, a barbershop, a gin, and two blacksmiths. The Baptist
organized on March 3, 1901. The services were held in the Schoolhouse until a
building was erected in 1903. It was first called The New Hope Baptist Church,
but the name was changed in 1926 to Pumphrey Baptist Church. The Methodist Church
was organized on March 17, 1901. It served the community until it closed in 1954.
The last store closed in 1950, and there were only nine residents in 1970. The
town did not show any population in the 1980s. |
14.
Runnels City, Texas
Runnels City,
or Old Runnels, is a ghost town five miles north of Ballinger
in Runnels County. It was designated the county seat when the county was organized
in 1880. Its population was 250 in 1882, but the Santa Fe Railroad bypassed the
town in 1886. When the railroad offered residents building sites and a general
relocation of buildings in Ballinger, people in Runnels City accepted, and in
1887 Ballinger became the county seat. By 1947 a rock hut and a ruined two-story
rock building were the only remnants of Runnels City. |
15.
Truitt, Texas
Truitt was located ten miles
east of Winters off Highway 1770. The town was named for the baby son of one the
merchants, Truitt Billups. A post office was acquired March 21, 1904, with the
appointment of John L. Golden. John Golden’s store was on the east side of the
one street running north and south, and the Billups General Mercantile was on
the west. The mail was delivered from Winters by John Brown the son of the justice
of the peace. The post office was closed in 1912. Doctors Ash and Pool had their
offices in the Branham drugstore. A Dr. Watson came in 1909 but moved to Crews
two years later. A Telephone system was installed in 1904, with the office in
the Billups store. There was also a hardware store and blacksmith shop on the
east side of the street.
Arthur Nichols started a gin and store in 1906.
School was in a one room building, but with two teachers. It was consolidated
with the Meadows School in 1915. Elmer Burke the Baptist minister held services
at the schoolhouse. At one time there were eleven dwellings in Truitt. When the
railroad was laid through Winters instead of Truitt, the town was doomed. All
the buildings were moved away the next few years and there is nothing to show
were Truitt was located except the cemetery. |
16.
Valley View, Texas
Valley View is
a community at the intersection of State Highway 158 and Farm Road 2111, six miles
northwest of Ballinger in Runnels
County. The Pearce School was built in the area in 1887, but the community name
Valley View originated when a Baptist church by that name organized in the school
in 1908. A schoolhouse was built nearby the next year and called Valley View.
The Pearce and Valley View schools merged in 1920 to establish Hagen School, named
after the first superintendent. The school was destroyed two different times.
In 1922 by a cyclone and in 1932 by a fire. It was rebuilt each time. In 1942
it was moved near the highway and in 1948 the building was moved to Ballinger.
Local resident J. A. Patterson helped bring about the moving of a Runnels City
church building to Valley View about 1917. This church consolidated with the Barnett
Church in 1946 under the name Valley View. The 1980 county highway map indicated
one business and a church at the townsite. Nowadays all that remains is empty
buildings and a few memories. |
17.
Walthall, Texas
A stage line connecting
Camp Colorado in Coleman County with Fort Concho in Tom Green County had a station
at the crossing of the Colorado River, four miles southeast of present Ballinger.
A settlement grew up here which at first consisted of one store, a house, and
a dugout. Later a school was built across the river. The settlement acquired the
name of Walthall. Nathaniel T. Guest, who had settled at the site in 1869, built
the first wood house in 1876. A post office was established on June 6, 1877 with
William G. Hightower as the fist postmaster; he also ran the general store. The
Walthall Methodist Church was organized in the Archibald Beniah Hutchison home
in 1879. The Colorado Baptist Church was organized on December 29, 1878. The latter
group worshipped in the Walthall schoolhouse with the Rev. J. T. Averetta being
the first pastor. In 1879 Rev. Thomas Wadlington Cotton was chosen pastor and
remained with the church until 1884. On January 12, 1880 a petition was signed
by 158 qualified voters of the area to organize a new county. On January 12, 1880
the Coleman County Commissioners Court approved the petition, sectioned the new
Runnels County into four precincts, and ordered an election of county officials
to be held on February 16, 1880. The first commissioners were William Moses Guest,
W. G. Preston, P. M. Pemberton and P. S. Turner , with W. W.Copeland as clerk.
Sylvester Adams was made county judge; John McEwen Formwalt was made the first
sheriff; and Jacob Benjamin Cotten was made the tax assessor-collector.
The Commissioners Court met for the first time on March 10, 1880 and selected
Walthall as the temporary county seat with the home of Rev. Thomas Wadlington
Cotton as a temporary courthouse. Later, an election on April 14, 1880 made Runnels
City the new county seat. The first schoolmaster at Walthall was John Nichols
Winters. The last postmaster was Nathaniel T. Guest who closed the office in 1881.
When Camp Colorado was closed, there was no need for the telegraph station and
Walthall declined. In a few years it was a ghost town. All that remains today
is the cemetery. |
18.
Wilmeth / Mazeland, Texas
Mazeland, named
for the maize that grew in the area, was founded on May 25, 1903, when a store
and post office was opened on the Hutchison Ranch with Mrs Hutchison as postmistress.
A school was erected in 1904, on land donated by M.T. Hensley, a mile and a half
northeast of Mazeland.
In 1910 a two-story building was erected and
more teachers employed. In 1915 the building was remodeled again. At one time
there was a church, and a community auditorium at the school. The school consolidated
with Winters in 1947. By 1906 settlement in the area had shifted to a mile east
of the school house. This section was named after a popular Ballinger banker,
Jo Wilmeth. Joel Smith and his wife started a store in Wilmeth. Housewives would
bring the mail from Mazeland and leave it at the store. Mrs Smith saw the need
for a post office in Wilmeth and became postmistress when one was opened in April
1, 1907. Richard Nash bought the Mazeland store in 1907 and became postmaster
in of Mazeland.
The following year he moved the store and post office
to Wilmeth. Both post offices closed in 1909. At one time Wilmeth had two blacksmith
shops a gin, a store and post office, a barber, and a telephone system with over
60 subscribers. A Methodist church was built at the Mazeland school in 1913. Members
of the Church of Christ erected a building in 1916. The Baptist organized in 1906
at Mazeland, meeting in the schoolhouse. In 1909 the Methodists and Baptist built
a tabernacle at the school. The Baptist built a church at Wilmeth in 1921. The
Church of Christ closed in 1962, the Methodist in 1949, and the Baptist in 2004.
The Wilmeth store was closed in the 1970's. | |
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