| |
 |
History
in a Pecan Shell
The town began life in the early 1880s as
a switching point called Prairie Switch on the New York, Texas and Mexican
Railroad. The lights of the tiny settlement could be seen for miles at night -
giving it the nickname ""Pearl of the Prairies."
Mexican cowboys started
calling it El Campo and the name stuck in 1890. Thousands of head of cattle were
shipped to markets in San Antonio
from the four huge ranches that surrounded the town - including the Pierce Ranch.
The town was little more than a section house and a cattle-loading chute
before a store was built in 1889. This was followed by a post office the following
year but still the population was a mere 25 people by 1892.
The town
once became the second largest hay-shipping center in the United States and made
the most of newly introduced rice industry. In the 1890s El Campo organized Swedish
Lutheran and Methodist churches, as well as Presbyterian and Baptist congregations.
German Lutheran and Catholic churches completed the inventory.
A fire
in 1896 destroyed the town's business section which rebuilt by 1900, only to be
burned again a year later. The town got the message and the second rebuilding
was done with brick. El Campo acquired a library in1901 - a year before they opened
the first bank. |
 |
Cotton
Gin. "King
Cotton is picked in August. Yield 1/2 ti 3/4 bales per acre, makes $25 to $40
per acre. Nine thousand acres in the El Campo district. Rice harvesting begins
also in August."
Advertising Postcard circa. 1910 courtesy William
Beauchamp |
The town incorporated
in 1905 and two years later the El Campo Ice and Water Company provided electricity
and ice. The El Campo Rice Milling Company opened in 1903 and was used by seventy
rice farms in 1904.
The 1910 population was 1,778, growing to 2.034 by
1930 and nearly 4,000 by 1941. Gas and oil were discovered in Wharton County in
the mid-1930s which stabilized the economy. It reached just over 6,216 in the
early 1950s and by 1970 it was five citizens short of 10,000. |
El
Campo town square
Photo courtesy George Shaffer, 2007 |
"Prairie
Switch" of the original switching station, now on the town square
Photo
courtesy George Shaffer, 2007 |
Former
bank building in El Campo
Photo courtesy George Shaffer, 2007 |
Rice
Farmers Coop
Photo courtesy George Shaffer, 2007 |
Rice
murals
Photo courtesy George Shaffer, 2007 | |
|
