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NORTH
HOUSTON , TEXAS
AKA ScovilleTexas
Ghost Town
Harris
County, Texas
Gulf Coast
Southwest of State Highway 149
On the Railroad Tracks
of the Burlington-Rock Island Line
10 Miles NW of Downtown Houston
Population:
0 |
Does
this look like a ghost town to you?
Photo
Courtesy Ken
Rudine, May 2010 |
Photographer's
Note:
North Houston is on or near the same railroad
as Louetta and Kohrville.
The area is now known as Willowood. The pictured area is on Fallbrook near
the intersection with FM249 housing a volunteer fire department and sheriff's
office. I always thought a nearby road named N Houston-Rosslyn was a road headed
a compass direction from Rosslyn (near Highway 290 and W 43rd St.) But like so
many area roads they are named for the termination points. - Ken
Rudine, May 2010 History
in a Pecan Shell
While most communities fight annexation, the residents here actually asked Houston
to include them (as an election ward) after they were left stranded by a hurricane
in the early days of the 20th century.
It was first known as Tomball
to honor the man the present city of Tomball is
named after. When a rival railroad named their station Tomball
in 1907, the town then took the name of Scoville (orign unknown).
A post
office opened under that name in for about one year – starting in 1908. In 1910
the post office was replaced by the North Houston post office (which closed in
1928).
Mail was thereafter rerouted through Fairbanks.
The town
of North Houston had but a single store in 1914 and remained in that underdeveloped
state through the Great Depression. The Handbook of Texas reports that in the
1980s, all that remained of North Houston were “two abandoned railroad stations
and a few scattered dwellings.” |
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1920s
Harris County map showing North Houston (above "A' in 'HARRIS')
Photo
courtesy Texas General Land Office |
The "Lost" Towns
of NW Harris County:
Kohrville | Louetta
| North Houston | Satsuma
If
these are ghost towns, why are there so many people here?
Although
they now only exist as sign names at large intersections (Barker-Cypress, Bammel-North
Houston, Aldine-Bender, Alief-Clodine, et. al.). It may surprise non-natives that
all of these names once represented once struggling or proudly self-sufficient
towns. Even the inside-the-loop street of Crosstimbers was once a separate town.
While
most people associate ghost towns
with ruins and desolation - these ghosts live among us. Were aisles seven and
eight at your local HEB once a syrup mill? Was Radio Shack once a livery stable?
Best Buy a cornfield or cotton gin?
Are there unmarked graves under the
floor of your favorite Mexican restaurant?
The short answer is this: In
many cases these villages were already ghost towns - or so close to being ghost
towns that you could hardly tell the difference. Most had their life-blood drained
from them after WWII with
the migration of rural families to Houston.
The phenomenon was statewide. Dallas
and Ft. Worth have their fair
share of postwar "absorbed" ghost towns - as do smaller cities.
Then "Edge
City" happened. The relentless march of strip centers, subdivisions and gated
communities overtook these former towns until only the names and cemeteries remained.
While
the subject is worthy of further investigation (exactly where is the Lily White
cemetery behind Memorial City Shopping Center?), we're happy to include this topic,
made possible by generous grant of time, sweat and reseach by the Team
Rudine.
- Editor
"15
Minutes of Separation"
May 12, 2010 column | |
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