Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > The Lighter Side
ROAD TRIP: A BBM Game
MaineWriter:
Wizard Wells, TX
Originally the town was named Old Vineyard for local resident G. W. Vineyard.
In the 1880s Vineyard discovered that sore on his legs were cured by spring waters. The healing powers of the waters attracted a lot of attention and so the place was dubbed "Wizard Wells." The town never prospered to the extent of other mineral springs, probably because it was lacking a railroad link. The population was close to 200 from the 1920s until the 1940s. Postwar mobility drained off its share of the townsfolk and now its down to the reported estimate of 70.
Leslie
Meryl:
San Luis Rio Colorado, Mexico
jpwagoneer1964:
Oyster Creek, Tx
OYSTER CREEK, TEXAS. A second Oyster Creek, an incorporated industrial community, is located twelve miles southeast of Angleton on State Highway 523 and the Missouri Pacific line in southeast Brazoria County. The community was established in an area first settled by Sam Hudgins and other cattlemen and later developed into cotton and sugar plantations. A Methodist mission church and a one-room schoolhouse served the area by the 1880s. The community grew between 1890 and 1894 when two brothers, known only as Horn and Horn, formed a promotion company and offered as a bonus one lot in Velasco for the purchase of five lots in the prairie along Oyster Creek. The company failed when the government prosecuted the brothers for embezzlement through the mails, sending one to prison and leading the other to cut his throat. A 1915 flood reduced the size of the community. By 1936 a church, a factory, and numerous dwellings remained at the townsite. In 1944 Oyster Creek became part of the Brazosport industrial and port area. In 1956 the town had 574 residents, six businesses, and ten churches; the population grew to 700 by 1966, but by then all the businesses had closed. The population was 600 in 1970 and 912 in 1990.
You can stay at the Oyster Creek RV Park pictured below.
Mark
Fran:
Krum, TX
MaineWriter:
Manhattan, TX
Manhattan was a planned town to be situated at the mouth of Caney Creek on East Matagorda Bay. The junction of the Matagorda Peninsula with the mainland once appeared on maps as Manhattan Bay.
The early years of settlement in Matagorda and Brazoria counties and the heady optimism of Texas independence created a boom of speculation with many trying to predict the next Brazoria or Quintana. Manhattan never developed - despite its optimistic name.
A local newspaper - the Matagorda Bulletin anounced plans for The Manhattan Academy to be established there. The trustees included such notables as Anson Jones, Mirabeau Lamar and William H. Wharton. The academy was intended to be a draw to the planned town, but the trustees were busy with other projects.
In 1838 the Caney Navigation Company listed three of the company's officers with having a Manhattan residence. In 1843 papers incorporating the Matagorda Caney Navigation Company referred to a place "commonly called the town of Manhattan."
The Matagorda Bulletin reported in 1838 that weekly trips between Matagorda and the town of Manhattan would be made by a sloop - also named Manhattan.
Leslie
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