| History
in a Pecan Shell
Although there is not a direct linkage to a previous
settlement called Gouldsboro, that town's post office was open by 1856, closed
four years later and reopened under a variation (Goolesboro) in 1878. The fledgling
community had just 30 people in 1884. It also had a post office with a name that
postal authorities deemed confusing (with other Texas post office names). They
requested that the townsfolk come up with a new name and it is said that a confection
sold by the Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana Candy Company TAL Co.) was the source.
The Paris
and Mount Pleasant Railroad was about to bypass the town but knowing their doom
if they stayed put - residents moved their homes and businesses to the tracks
beginning in 1912.
By 1914 the relocated Talco had a depot, telephone
service and 300 citizens. It entered the great Depression with a respectable 350
people but things changed drastically in 1936. In February of that year the Talco
Oilfield came in - creating a boomtown. The town was inundated with jobless men
looking for work. Oil leases were sold in the street and even the School trustees
accepted a bid for a well to be drilled on the playground of the school.
But
the "low gravity" oil was low value compared to the oil in other fields. It was,
however excellent for asphalt, and before one could say "Asphalt Capital of the
World"- the chamber of commerce was using the slogan. Oil money - or in this case
asphalt money - was well spent. Streets were paved, infrastructure put in place
and the city incorporated. Bonds were sold so that a new city hall could be built.
The population stood at about 2,000 by the end of the 30's, but as the boom subsided
- it declined by half.
Talco's population rebounded to 1,250 by 1960,
but declined back to 751 by 1980. The Talco field remains in production and the
town's economy remains directly linked.
See
Recollections
of Talco During the Oil Boom
by Robert Cowser |
