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Directions
furnished by McCulloch Countian Jim Johnson:
About 7 miles west of Brady on US 87, north of the highway at a "T"
intersection of 2 gravel roads there is sign on the highway pointing
to the West Sweden cemetery. Three
miles west of this point - is the turnoff for West
Sweden. The gravel road goes south another 3 miles where you cross
on a small bridge over Brady Creek and up around a 90° right turn
(west). Before you make the corner to should be able to make out the
old railroad bed. Within a ¼ mile drive, you
are in the middle of "downtown" Whiteland. The school building is
in a field to south. The cotton gin and the loading pens were in the
pasture to the north of the county road. |
Whiteland
School
Photo courtesy William Perez |
Photographer's
Note
My father was born in Melvin, Texas on March 3rd 1915. He owned a
farm there for many years. He told me many times about the Whiteland
school and spoke fondly of it. He used to tell me that he and his
brothers would occasionally ride the train which passed by to and
from school. The tracks are gone now (I have some great glass insulators
from when they removed the track) but I wondered how my father did
that...the train must have moved slow! He told me that once he fell
from the train and ripped a leather coat my grandparents had given
him. His father was quite upset with him. My father passed away in
2005, and I wish he were still around to share his stories about Melvin,
Texas. - William Perez, December 06, 2007 |
Photographer's
Note
The 1940 Texas Highway Map showed an impressive little town at Whiteland.
We weren't going any closer through that pasture as the area was crawling
with rattlesnakes. - Stephen
Taylor, Austin TX,
October 28, 2007
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History in
a Pecan Shell
Whiteland was named to honor the White family who donated land for
the townsite. A post office open the following year and by 1914 the
town reported a population of fifty. The prosperity of the 20s boosted
the population to 125 by the middle of that decade, but the Great
Depression took its toll and by 1943 only 40 people were enumerated.
The post closed sometime before the mid-1950s.
Additional history is provided by Jim Johnson:
"Whiteland is another Texas ghost town to have just about blown
away with usually present winds. It is / was located in McCulloch
County, about half way between Brady
and Melvin. When the railroad continued
on westward from Brady, the line branched at Whiteland ( also listed
on the railroad map as Homer Junction ). The earliest line, the Frisco,
was built through on it way from Brady
to Menard in 1910. In 1911,
the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe was extended to Melvin
and Eden.
The Frisco Railroad came south from Brownwood
into Brady in about
1903. When the Santa Fe came from the east, Lometa
to San Saba and on, the two lines
joined near the East Sweden community and shared trackage from there
into Brady and on
west to Whiteland ( Homer Junction ).
Whiteland developed into a small town with live stock shipping pens
and a cotton gin on the south side of the railroad. A school, store,
and ( I think ) a post office came into being. The 2 story brick school
building still stands, lonesome in the middle of a field. As with
many of these towns, automobiles and World
War II signal their demise. The school was consolidated with the
Melvin system. Cotton
had replace grain crops and in about 1948 the gin burnt down. Finally
the rails were pulled up and Whiteland was pretty much just a memory."
- Jim Johnson, October 29, 2006
Our
thanks to Jim Johnson for suggesting Whiteland and West
Sweden for inclusion in Texas Escapes
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