There are six communities that make up the Boling ISD. The following is a brief history of each of them: |
| BOLING, TEXAS (return to index)
Boling is on Farm roads 1301 and 442 and the west bank of Caney Creek, nine miles southeast of Wharton in southeastern Wharton County. The community was established in 1900, when the New York, Texas and Mexican Railway built through the area. Robert E. Vineyard had a town plat surveyed and named it Bolling in honor of his six-year-old daughter, Mary Bolling Vineyard. The post office listing altered the spelling. Before the arrival of the railroad, the site was known as Floyd's Lane and was on the trail that led to crossings on the San Bernard and Colorado rivers. Until after the railroad was built, no major road, only a trail along Caney Creek, led to Wharton from the site. The railroad brought in a few settlers, but the area remained largely in the hands of large landowners, remnants from the plantation era. In 1907 Boling had a school for black students, with four teachers and an enrollment of 104. These children were primarily the descendants of former slaves whose families still lived in the area, working as tenant, sharecropper, or salaried agricultural workers on the large land tracts. In 1907 the community had a store, a blacksmith shop, and fewer than a dozen families. Beginning in 1925, sulfur, oil, and gas were discovered at Boling Dome, and Boling became a boomtown. Its population grew from twenty in 1920 to 450 in 1930. One of the new Boling subdivisions named all its streets after oil companies operating on Boling Dome. Vineyard's platted town became a residential section, rather than a business district as he had hoped. A post office established at the community in 1926 had one rural-route service in the 1980s. A Boling Chamber of Commerce was established in 1935, and the town was incorporated in 1940; by 1944 its population reached 800. The Boling Independent School District was organized in 1941, bringing in schools in Iago and Newgulf to help form the district. In 1973 part of the Hungerford Independent School District was consolidated into the Boling district. The high school campus was in Boling, the junior high campus in Iago, and the elementary campus in Newgulf. In the early 1990s the town's economy was based largely on oil, gas, and sulfur production. Its population was reported as 700 from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s and declined to 521 by 1972. Thereafter the number of residents began to increase again, to 1,297 by 1990. The closure of the sulfur plant at Newgulf in December 1993 adversely affected the Boling economy. Merle R. Hudgins BURR, TEXAS return to index) Burr, also known as Lawson and Kriegel, on Farm Road 1301 four miles southeast of Wharton in southeastern Wharton County, began when Burr Albert Harrison and a family named Callaway established plantations in the area. Harrison arrived in 1859 and set up sugar, syrup, and grist mills on Caney Creek. The 1860 census recorded eighty-three slaves belonging to Harrison and a total of ninety slaves belonging to four Callaways. The Callaway children were taught by the Harrisons' governess. The community took its first name from Dick Lawson, who built a general store, Lawson's Corner, on the border of the Lawson and Harrison plantations. Harrison died in 1881, and about 1889 his son, Gerard Alexander Harrison, managed the plantation and established a mercantile business that was at one time larger than any general store in Wharton; the brick building remains at Burr. Local plantation owners contributed to a church, which was destroyed by fire soon after the Civil War. Isam Davenport, a black justice of the peace, was in office during Reconstruction and also served as county commissioner. According to residents he used his position to get free labor by arresting other black men for drinking or shooting craps and then sentencing them to "ten days hard labor in Isam Davenport's cotton patch." The first of two Baptist churches at Burr was built about 1892, and the other a few years later. The first Lawson school was established sometime after 1889. A second school, which was subsequently moved to a better location, was built after 1893 on land also to be used for a church and cemetery. Because of limited white enrollment in a largely black community, the white Lawson school began with a term that lasted only four months; in 1905 it had twenty-one pupils and one teacher. When Charles Kriegel, a native of Germany, came to the area in 1896, leased the Lawson Store, and then took it over in 1897, the community and postal station came to be known as Kriegel. Kriegel became a real estate promoter in the area about 1900, when the New York, Texas and Mexican Railway was built from Wharton through Lawson and Van Vleck to Sargent. The switch for loading cane and other products built in front of the school was known as Kriegel Switch. A mile up the road was Dinsmore, and a mile south was Burr. At this time the community comprised a territory of three or four square miles, but in 1902 only five residents were reported. By 1907 the Lawson school had thirty-one white pupils and a teacher, and the Kriegel school, across the street from the store, had 358 black pupils and nine teachers. A post office named Kriegel was established in 1899 and discontinued in 1910, when Kriegel gave up his store and Gerard Harrison moved the post office to his store. Harrison gave the office the new name Burr in honor of his father. In 1915 the community had two stores, a church, and rural school. The post office was discontinued in 1918, and mail was sent to Wharton. A new Lawson school, built in 1919, had five teachers and 100 pupils in 1942 and was made part of the Boling Independent School District in 1947. One store and a population of eighty-three were reported in 1939, but by 1941 many residents had moved. In 1989 only two businesses remained at the town site, and cemeteries were near the banks of the creek. In 1991 the store built by Gerard Harrison was still standing and was used for storage. Bibliography: Annie Lee Williams, A History of Wharton County (Austin:
Von Boeckmann-Jones, 1964). Claudia Hazlewood HUNGERFORD, TEXAS return to index) Hungerford is on U.S. Highway 59 and State Highway 60, six miles from Wharton in northeastern Wharton County. By the early 1870s a farming and cattle raising community named Quinan, after George E. Quinan, had developed at the site in the Alexander Jackson league near West Bernard Creek. A community post office was established in 1874 in the general store of John C. Habermacher, who served as first postmaster and was appointed the first trustee of the Quinan school in 1877. Habermacher's wife was a granddaughter of Alexander Jackson. Habermacher also formed the Quinan Literary Club; he had formerly been a member of the actor Edwin Booth's troupe. In 1880 area residents established a Methodist church. In 1882, when the New York, Texas and Mexican Railway passed a quarter mile east of Quinan, most of the town's businesses moved to be next to the railroad. A town site was surveyed in the George W. Singleton league and named Hungerford, after Daniel E. Hungerford, an executive of the railroad syndicate. In 1883 the post office was moved from Quinan to Hungerford, and William McKinney became the postmaster. By 1885 Hungerford had a school, several churches, a steam cotton gin, a gristmill, and a population of 200. By 1926 the community had three large general stores and ten other businesses. It also included one white-congregation church and several black-congregation churches and five area schools for white and black children; the schools reported 189 white students, 259 black students, and thirteen teachers. The 1927 poll-tax roll listed sixty-four blacks registered and eighty-five whites. By 1961 Hungerford had a population of 450 and eighteen businesses, but by that time the train no longer stopped there. In 1973 the Hungerford school district disbanded and was absorbed by the four nearby school districts. At the time of the division, the Hungerford Independent School District had the largest territory in a single district in Wharton County. By the 1980s the population of the community had increased to almost 500. Most of the businesses at that time were seasonal: pecans, grain, cotton, and hunting. Since 1908 Hungerford has been the headquarters for the J. D. Hudgins Ranch, Incorporated, and since 1926 it has been the headquarters for Strouhal's Tire and Recapping Company, the largest such business on the Gulf Coast. In 1980 the Teen Challenge of South Texas New Life Rehabilitation Center purchased the old black school campus and located its headquarters there. It began with a campus population of 150, but by 1990 it had increased to some 250 residents, and the center had purchased additional land to accommodate its growth. During the late 1980s, U.S. Highway 59 was rerouted to bypass Hungerford. In 1986 four Texas Historical Commission markers were placed at the community: for Post West Bernard Station, for the J. D. Hudgins Ranch, for the New York, Texas and Mexican Railway, and for the communities of Hungerford and Quinan. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Annie Lee Williams, A History of Wharton County (Austin:
Von Boeckmann-Jones, 1964).Merle R. Hudgins IAGO, TEXAS return to index) Iago is at the intersection of Farm roads 1301 and 1096, two miles northwest of Boling and twelve miles east of Wharton in southeastern Wharton County. The local Caney Creek was originally named Canebrake Creek for the large primeval forest of what Texans call "cane," a native bamboo, Arundinaria, growing to heights of twenty feet. The first settlers burned off the large tracts of canebrake, built large plantations, and grew sugar cane and cotton. The results of the Civil War and the sugar cane blight ended the large plantations, and the area was generally abandoned until 1899, when the New York, Texas and Mexican Railway ran a branch from Wharton to Van Vleck in Matagorda County. This opened up the area to small farming interests. Clarence D. Kemp owned three and one sixth leagues of land where he set up a mercantile store in the late 1880s. The nearest settlements were Waterville, five miles west, and Preston, three miles west. A post office operated in Iago from 1891 until 1900 with Kemp as postmaster. Kemp was sheriff of Wharton County from 1914 to 1921. G. C. Mick surveyed and laid out the township of Iago in 1911, from 1,000 acres that he bought from Kemp. The area had been part of the Seth Ingram league and was next to the railroad. The name Iago was chosen by M. D. Taylor and C. W. Kemp, after the villain in Shakespeare's Othello. The first school was organized in 1902; it became part of the Boling school district in 1941. By 1920 Iago had two gins, a syrup mill, a blacksmith, several mercantile and grocery stores, a drugstore and doctor, a barbershop, saloons, a church, and a population of 200. The 1927 Wharton County poll tax roll lists 134 white registrants, seven of whom were women, and fifty-three black registrants, three of whom were women. The church was a federation of Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, and Disciples of Christ. Each group was responsible for services one Sunday each month, and any fifth Sunday was open to other denominations. Summer revivals were sponsored by the groups in alphabetical order. An oil well was drilled in the front yard of the church in 1945, and the mineral royalty financed the building program on the original lot given by William Stafford. In 1958 the population was 300, but it dropped to 150 by 1964. The Iago Federated Church was still active in 1991. The school served as a Boling junior high. In 1990 a few businesses still operated in the area, and several outlying farms and oil and gas wells were still productive. A cemetery behind the school campus was neglected and overgrown. In 1990 Iago had a population of fifty-six. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Matagorda County Historical Commission, Historic Matagorda County (3 vols., Houston: Armstrong, 1986). Frank X. Tolbert, "Tolbert's Texas" Scrapbook, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin. Del Weniger, The Explorers' Texas (Austin: Eakin Press, 1984). Annie Lee Williams, A History of Wharton County (Austin: Von Boeckmann-Jones, 1964). Merle R. Hudgins NEWGULF, TEXAS return to index) Newgulf (New Gulf) is on top of the Boling Dome, reputed to be the largest known inland deposit of sulfur in the world, in the extreme eastern corner of Wharton County between the San Bernard River and Caney Creek in the Seth Ingram league. The company owned town was established in 1928 for the employees of the Texas Gulf Sulphur Company (now Texasgulf ). While the town was under construction, a contest-open to employees only-was held to name it. The winning entry was submitted by Marie Ertz, who worked at the Houston office. (Texas Gulf Sulphur's first company town was named Gulf.) About 400 houses-with one, two, or three bedrooms were constructed and were leased to employees. The business section of Newgulf consisted of a single four lane avenue lined with stores. At the town's peak it had as many as fifteen businesses, including a cafe, two dry-goods stores, two grocery stores, two pharmacies, a barbershop, a tailor and cleaning shop, a movie theater, and three garages. Texas Gulf Sulphur also built a hospital, a library, a school, a post office, and a clubhouse with a nine hole golf course. In time the company constructed four churches Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian-a Girl Scout and a Boy Scout clubhouse, and a guest lodge with two guest houses. The population of Newgulf peaked in 1940 at 1,586. Self contained and semi isolated, residents developed into a very close-knit community. Teamwork at the plant brought about camaraderie among Newgulf residents. When Newgulf was founded, there were no paved roads in this part of the county, and the nearest town was Wharton, more than fifteen miles away. Because of the oil and sulfur discoveries, during this same period the community of Boling emerged three miles to the west. An independent school district was formed in 1928, and with cooperation from Texas Gulf Sulphur, three schools were built. Newgulf and Iago each had an elementary school, and Boling had the high school, which served all three communities. In 1959 the district established three separate campuses using these structures. All elementary students are bussed to Newgulf, and junior high students, to Iago; the high school remains in Boling. Newgulf began to decline in the late 1950s and early 1960s. By 1956 the sulfur industry was producing more sulfur than it sold, foreign sulfur prices had dipped, and Texas Gulf Sulphur had begun constructing several new plants elsewhere; this, combined with the 1957 United States recession, led to layoffs of Newgulf employees. The company began selling empty houses in 1961. New mining techniques and machinery further reduced the need for onsite employees. In 1980 and 1990 the town reported 963 residents. By 1990 only 100 houses remained at Newgulf, and the businesses and their buildings were gone, as better roads allowed Newgulf residents to shop in nearby Boling and Wharton instead. At that time the only remaining amenities in Newgulf were the clubhouse and its golf course, by then operated by the Newgulf Athletic Club members. In 1993 the Newgulf post office closed, and the remaining residents and the Texas Gulf Sulphur offices were served by a rural route from Boling. Though in 1995 a skeleton crew remained at the sulphur mine site, the town was only a shadow of its former self. The golf course was still in operation, however, as was the Newgulf elementary school, which had been absorbed into the Boling Independent School District. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Annie Lee Williams, A History of Wharton County (Austin: Von Boeckmann-Jones, 1964). Merle R. Hudgins PLEDGER, TEXAS return to index) Pledger is at the junction of Farm roads 1301 and 1728, nineteen miles north of Bay City in the northern corner of Matagorda County. The area's first settlers were brought by Stephen F. Austin, who granted titles to the land between 1824 and 1827. The rich bottom land on Caney Creek yielded crops of sugar cane, cotton, and corn. A post office was established in 1880 with John Walton Brown as postmaster. He named the post office Pledger after the family of his deceased wife, Narcissa Pledger. In 1885 Pledger had two churches, a district school, two general stores, two cotton gins, a steam gristmill, and a population of seventy-five. By 1890 the population had grown to 200, and by 1892 Pledger had three gristmills, four gins, two livestock concerns, three general stores, a constable, and a population of 360. The railroad reached Pledger by 1900, when a branch of the New York, Texas and Mexican Railway was built from Wharton to Van Vleck. In 1902 the town site was platted and filed. In 1914 fifty people lived in Pledger. The Grove Hill church, located near the Brown Plantation, was used as a schoolhouse by slaves from the local plantations and their descendants. In 1938 Pledger had two schools, one with three teachers and fifty-nine white students and one with four teachers and 134 black students. In 1947 the Pledger area public schools were consolidated with the Boling school district. The Boling oil boom of the late 1920s and early 1930s, followed by the opening of sulfur mines at New Gulf, bolstered the area's economy during the Great Depression. By 1925 Pledger had a population of 250, and in 1936 it had six businesses. During the 1920s a pipeline was completed from the Damon oil fields to Pledger. Oil loading racks were built along the railroad sidings, where oil was loaded and shipped to nearby refineries. Pledger had 150 residents and four businesses in 1948. In 1989 the population was 159, and the town had three churches and five businesses. In 1990 the population was still reported at 159. During most of its history Pledger was primarily an agricultural community. Pecans, turf grass, grains, soy beans, hay, livestock, and cotton were all grown in the area. More recently, however, it became a bedroom community for Houston, Wharton, West Columbia, Bay City, Old Ocean, Freeport, and the South Texas Nuclear Project. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Matagorda County Historical Commission, Historic Matagorda County (3 vols., Houston: Armstrong, 1986.
Date Last Modified: 8/31/04 |