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Texas Ghost
Town
HATCHEL, TEXAS
Runnels County,
Panhandle / West Texas
Population:
16 est. |
Hatchel,
on U.S. Highway 83 in central Runnels County,
was originally named Vogelsang for Otto Vogelsang, a local settler.
With the establishment of a post office in 1904, it was named for
E. W. Hatchel, a storekeeper and the community's first postmaster.
The Abilene and Southern Railway reached Hatchel in 1909, and soon
the community comprised more than eight businesses, including a depot,
cattle pens, and a gin. The first school was built one mile north
of Hatchel and was called Bowman. Sometime after 1920 a two-story
rock school building was erected east of the railroad near downtown
Hatchel. A Baptist church was also erected near the school. The town
declined, and by the 1970s it had lost its post office. The population
of Hatchel was reported as fifty in 1940 and as sixteen in 1980 and
1990.
From "Eighteen
Ghost Towns of Runnels County" by Alton O'Neil Jr. |
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