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History in
a Pecan shell
J. T. Goforth, storekeeper and landowner was the towns namesake when
it was settled in the earlyb 1880s. The town built its first school
in 1881 and a post office opened in 1890 (closed in 1902). It was
the center of cotton ginning for eastern Hays County. From a forward-looking
population of 100 people in 1890 it fell to just 20 by the middle
of that decade.
The cotton ginning business and the local farms continued to prosper,
without benefit of a populated town center. The thin soil became exhausted,
a flood in 1913 and then the boll
weevil infestation in the 1920s doomed Goforth. A school for Mexican-American
children remained until consolidation in the late 1940s and today
only the cemetery marks the former town. |
Goforth, Texas
Forum
Subject: Remembering
Goforth:
I grew up less than two miles from Goforth. It was east-southeast
of Buda, and had a cotton gin. Apparently, Goforth began its decline
when the railroad went through Buda
in 1881. We used to go to the ruins of the town in the 1950s and early
1960s and had picked up old newspapers and advertising (which our
mother later discarded). We still have several old bills of lading
from the Goforth Mercantile dating from the 1890s. Goforth had a post
office, schools, at least one church and a cemetery or two. Unfortunately,
someone purchased the property that the old stores sat upon in the
late 1960s and burned everything. Evidence of the cotton gin is still
visible on the county road there. One church still exists and the
cemetery is still in use. - Clay Thompson
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