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History
in a Pecan shell
The St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway arrived
here in 1907 and the town was platted two years later. John James Welder and David
Odem were the town developers. David just happened to be the county sheriff, which
may or may not have influenced the naming of the town.
Coleman-Fulton
Pasture Company lands had been sold and subdivided into small farms. Smaller communities
of Angelita, Kaleta, Meansville,
and Sharpsburg were drawn into “greater” Odem. By 1915 there were 500 residents.
Vegetable farming was the town’s initial economy. Beets, Cabbage, Onions,
Radishes and Spinach were the predominant crops.
Decades later it is
corn, cotton
and grain sorghum that is shipped out. Many townspeople commute to Corpus
Christi for work. By the late 1980s the population had increased to almost
3,000. |
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Photographer's
Note:
The cotton
crop is a rarity this year with the drought. Some cotton gins in the area will
not open this year and most cotton fields never developed and others plowed under
when the crops burned up. - William
Beauchamp, August 2009 |
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