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History in
a Pecan Shell
De Leon was
born when The Texas Central Railroad sold lots off the bed of a
flatcar on July 7, 1881. The name is attributed to Alonso
De Leon, a Spanish explorer who also lent his name to the nearby
Leon River.
The post office was opened within the year and by 1882, the town
had a newspaper and a doctor. Like most of Texas,
cotton was the major cash crop
until the 1906 infestation of the boll
weevil decimated the crop. Peanuts were the replacement crop
and increased technology and irrigation insured its continuation.
It is the primary regional crop to the present.
Forum:
Subject: De Leon Update
Peanuts are no longer the predominant crop in the De Leon area and
haven't been for quite a few years. Even though it's hard to consider
it a "crop", you could say that coastal bermuda is now the predominant
crop solely grown to produce hay for the cattle and the hay itself
is sold far and wide. Driving around the area, you'll see more acreage
of coastal bermuda than anything else. You rarely see a field of
peanuts anymore. The peanut growing business pretty much moved to
west Texas.
Cotton has been making a comeback
in recent years and has been doing fairly well considering how little
rainfall we get, but it's dry land cotton
and does well if small rains come at the right time.
The only known "farmers" who are actually growing edible food in
Comanche county are someone in Gustine
that grows large amounts of squash and tomatoes and a small time
onion grower around Comyn that grows
a few thousand sweet onions every year. A farmer's market exists
in De Leon but has no participants.
P.S. Back in they heyday of the peanut business around De Leon and
Gorman, duck man Phil
Robertson used to hunt ducks in the area because of the huge number
of ducks that flocked to the peanut fields. There are hardly any
ducks anymore but there are thousands of sandhill cranes that flock
to the few remaining peanut fields and do their resting at Lake
Proctor. - Shane Hall, De Leon, July 25, 2014
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Downtown De Leon
Photo courtesy Shane Hall, November 2008 |
Sandhill Cranes
Photo courtesy Shane Hall |
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