Edward Callary - Texas Place Names

NUMBER TWENTY-TWO

Clifton and Shirley Caldwell Texas Heritage Series

Texas place Names

EDWARD CALLARY

WITH JEAN K. CALLARY

University of Texas Press,

Austin

Publication of this work was made possible in part by support from Clifton and Shirley Caldwell and a challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Copyright 2020 by the University of Texas Press

All rights reserved

First edition, 2020

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Austin, TX 78713-7819

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Callary, Edward, author. | Callary, Jean K., author.

Title: Texas place names / Edward Callary, Jean K. Callary.

Description: First edition. | Austin : University of Texas Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019030203

ISBN 978-1-4773-2064-8 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-4773-2065-5 (library e-book)

ISBN 978-1-4773-2066-2 (non-library e-book)

Subjects: LCSH: Names, GeographicalTexas. | TexasHistory.

Classification: LCC F384 .C35 2020 | DDC 976.4dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019030203

DOI:10.7560/320648

Dedicated to the memory of Fred Tarpley: Mister Texas Names

Contents

INTRODUCTION

This is a book about the place names of Texaswhere they came from and how they were created. We all have a natural interest in place names, especially odd and unusual names, of which Texas has its shareBug Tussel, Ding Dong, Telephone, Uncertainbut remarkable names are only a fraction of the thousands of names that make up the Texas namescape.

Place names dont just happen: They have a reason and a purpose. Texas place names tell stories about the people, places, and events that contributed to Texas history and its constantly changing culture. Consider Hanna Strobridge: Its late in 1882 and shes been reading a Jules Verne novel in which Marfa Strogoff is a central character. Given the opportunity to recommend a name for a new Texas town, she offered Marfa, and so it is today. In 1870 Ossamus Hitch Methvin climbed to the top of Rock Hill in Gregg County and was so impressed by the long view across the prairie that he named the railroad town Longview. In 1936 Dion McDonald opened a store in Delta County; contrary to his wishes the store, and later the community, became known as Jot Em Down after the fictional store kept by Lum and Abner on their popular radio show. In 1901 a new town was named Dalhart because it straddled the Dallam-Hartley county line, and in 2005 the town of Clark, north of Fort Worth, changed its name to Dish after Dish Network, offered free satellite TV service to all residents for ten years.

Texas is a big state, really bigover 270,000 square milesand needs many names for simple geolocation, for getting from one place to another. How many Texas place names are there? That depends on what you count, and when. Places may have had several names over time. They may change their names for reasons that are cultural (San Angela became San Angelo), historical (Waterloo became Austin), or strictly personal (Pease became Margaret in honor of the postmasters four-year-old daughter). Sometimes a town leaves a state (Booker moved south from Oklahoma to be close to a railroad line; most of Texhoma left Texas when the Oklahoma state line moved south), or even a country (Brownsville was no longer in Mexico after the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo).

Then, too, Texas has its share of ghost towns. As the last residents move on, maps age and are consigned to archives, and the names of once flourishing places disappear from public view and private memory. Offsetting the loss of names, Texas, like most states, gains new names daily. There is constant naming or renaming of schools, parks, streets, and newly populated placesespecially residential tracts with names that are part pastoral lifestyle and part oxymoronWestlake Hills (Austin), The Falls at Dry Creek (Houston), Wolf Ranch (Georgetown).

The best estimate we have of the number of Texas names is from GNIS, the Geographic Names Information System, the nations digital gazetteer. As of early 2019, GNIS listed more than 115,000 Texas names. The greatest share, nearly 14,000, named churches; the least, a pair of tunnels (Baytown Tunnel in Harris County and the Quitaque Railway Tunnel in Floyd County) and a single crater (Odessa Meteor Crater in Ector County).

The Data

From the GNIS list we took the 10,188 names of Populated Places, added the names of the 254 Texas counties, added the names of cities and towns found in the 20192020 Texas Almanac that were not in GNIS, and spent the next three years tracking down place name origins in county and state histories; county, state, and community archives; theses and dissertations; historical society publications; church histories; personal diaries; local interviews; and websites beyond numberwherever reliable information on the sources of the names could be found. Several resources were especially valuable. The Handbook of Texas Online has been a constant and indispensable companion. However, because the Handbook, like all sources, is fallible, whenever possible the entries in this book have been verified from primary sources such as census records; birth, death, and marriage records; land survey records; property sale and tax records; cemetery inscriptions; and obituary notices.

In addition to the Handbook, we are indebted to the library of the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas, Austin. The extensive Briscoe collection and the help we received from the Briscoes knowledgeable and personable staff, notably Catherine Best, are especially appreciated. Also of great value was the Fred Tarpley collection at the Gee Library, Texas A&M UniversityCommerce, and the help of archivist Michael Barera. Fred Tarpley, a student at what was then East Texas State Teachers College and a career faculty member at Texas A&MCommerce, was a master folklorist and an indefatigable collector of names, especially the names of northeast Texas. His books, field records, manuscripts, and clippings enlighten many of the entries in this book.

Pronunciation Guide

A broad transcription guide indicates local pronunciation where it might not be obvious from the spelling (Cuevitas [kwuh VEET uhs], DeKalb [dee KAB]). Residents of Wied live in the town of weed; Gruene is green; and if you dont want to be spotted as an outsider, when in Elgin remember to say [EL gin] (as in begin), not [EL jin].

Organization of the Entries

The content of entries varies according to the available information, but each entry begins with the place name followed by either the local pronunciation (if different from what the spelling would suggest) and the county of location (in parentheses). Some descriptions are briefthe name of an early settler or the first post office; others offer historical or cultural information if it adds to the source of the name or the circumstances surrounding its adoption. Post office information follows. Texas counties are included in the alphabetical entries, and precede identical place names.

Some examples:

NADA [NAY duh] (Colorado) Organized about 1890 by Czechs and Germans from the area around FRELSBURG. Named from Czech nadje, hope. PO 17 Apr 1894, PM William Engbrock.

NAT (Nacogdoches) Nathaniel (Nat) Jarrell was a dry goods salesman and the first postmaster 12 Apr 1895.

NATALIA (Medina) The Medina Irrigation Company founded Natalia in 1912, named for Natalie Pearson, daughter of engineer Frederick Stark Pearson who built the dam that created Medina Lake in 1913. PO 19 Mar 1913, PM Thomas Ragsdale. See Pearson.