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Overgrown
trestle
TE Photo, January 2010 |
History
in a Pecan Shell
The town was the result of a plantation and a railroad. Business partners Eldridge
and Dunovant owned a plantation here and it became the terminus of the Cane Belt
railroad around 1890. They owned another plantation nearby. Crops were cane, corn,
cotton and rice. The partners contracted prison
labor and a camp was set up (in what would become Bonus) here in 1900.
In the mid 1890s a post office was applied for under the name Alamo, but that
name was already in use. Since the owners of the Cane Belt had offered a bonus
for the completion of the line, they resubmitted the application with that name
– which was accepted.
The two men quarreled in 1901 and Mr. Dunovant assumed
all of the holdings around Eagle
Lake while Eldridge took sole ownership of their former holdings at Bonus.
The seemingly fair split of property evidently wasn’t – for the following year
Eldridge shot and killed his former partner.
Being a prison camp, little
mail came through the post office and it was closed and reopened several times
before a final closing in 1940.
In 1936 Bonus had a population of 50 which
slowly declined to just 42 for the 1980 census. The railroad abandoned part of
its line around 1940 and in the early 1990s the main line was removed including
the ties and roadbed. In
2000 the population remained at forty-two.
Bonus,
Texas TodayPhotographer's
Note:
A few residential
structures remain. One appears to be a community center – or a business devoid
of signage. |
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Bonus
City Limit
TE Photo, January 2010 |
Bonus
Structure
TE Photo, January 2010 | |
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