Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > The Lighter Side

ROAD TRIP: A BBM Game

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Meryl:
Teton Village, WY

MaineWriter:
Elysian Fields, TX

 The name is said to have come from a suggestion over dinner in New Orleans. In 1817, Capt. Edward Smith, was describing the area (that he had just visited) to dinner guests and someone suggested the mythological name. (One of New Orleans' oldest boulevards is also named Elysian Fields.) The original Caddo Indians started moving out of the region when white settlers started moving in in the late 1830s. Smith brought his family here in 1837 and opened a store. A post office was applied for and was granted in the mid to late 1840s.

From a population of 60 in 1884, Elysian Fields had grown to 160 by the mid 1890s. The twin industies of cotton and lumber fueled the local economy and when the Marshall and East Texas Railroad came through in 1910, the community moved a mile to the west to be connected with the outside world. The population had grown to 500 by 1929 but declined with the onset of the Great Depression.

Cotton and timber gave way to oil and gas (in the 1950s) and today farming and cattle raising are the primary businesses.

Leslie

jpwagoneer1964:
Socorro, Tx

SOCORRO, TEXAS. Socorro, located on the Southern Pacific Railroad and State Highway 20 about ten miles southeast of downtown El Paso, began in 1680, when Governor Antonio de Otermín and Father Francisco de Ayetaqv led Spanish and Piro Indian refugees fleeing the New Mexican Pueblo Indian Revolt to the El Paso area. In 1682 the Spanish established Nuestra Señora de la Limpia Concepción del Socorro Mission. The first permanent mission, built in 1691, was swept away by flood in 1744, and a second church was built. It was washed away in 1829, when the Rio Grande cut a new channel south of the old one, thus placing Socorro, Ysleta, and San Elizario on La Isla.qv The main part of the present Socorro mission was completed in 1843. By that time the town of Socorro had developed around the mission and had a population of 1,100. The town was a part of Mexico from 1821 to 1848, when it became a part of the Texas. For the rest of the nineteenth century Socorro remained a small farming community. Locally constructed acequiasqv supplied water for agricultural crops, which included vineyards, fruit trees, and cereal grains. The town, together with other Rio Grande communities, played an active role in county politics until 1881, when the railroads arrived and shifted the political power structure to El Paso.

The construction of Elephant Butte Dam on the Rio Grande in 1916 resulted in an agricultural revolution that transformed a family-based system into one featuring large-scale cotton production on plantation-sized estates. Small farms, manual labor, and vineyard culture gave way to large landholdings where farm machinery was used in the cultivation of cotton and alfalfa. By 1920 cotton was beginning to rival copper as the Socorro area's principal industry. The population of the community was 2,123 in the mid-1930s, but fell to 350 by 1941 and remained static for several decades thereafter. During the 1960s and 1970s the number of residents increased at a rapid rate. Developers built residential subdivisions-colonias in effect-that lacked paved streets, water, and sewer lines. Coloniaqv residents put tremendous pressure on existing wells, as the town's population grew from 10,000 in the middle 1970s to 18,000 in the late 1980s and 22,995 in 1990. Only recently has the Lower Valley Water District Authority received the necessary assistance to begin construction of new water and sewage systems for the area. Socorro has disincorporated and reincorporated several times. In 1985 the town blocked El Paso's plan to annex the town and voted by a margin of 263 votes to remain a separate corporation. Since then, Socorro has adopted ordinances and codes to halt uncontrolled growth and has instituted a historic landmark commission to encourage historic preservation.


You can pirchase this home in Sorroco for $99,750.00.


Mark

Fran:
Orla, TX

MaineWriter:
Altair, TX

Altair had its beginnings in the 1880s and was granted a post office in 1888. The town had originally been named Stafford's Ranch after the prosperous and influential Stafford family of Columbus. But to avoid postal confusion with Stafford, Texas (in nearby Fort Bend County), it was renamed Altair in 1890.

The Texas and New Orleans Railroad arrived in 1890 but Altair never fully developed due to the proximity to the county seat of Columbus - just 9 miles north. Altair had a mere 200 people in the 1960s which declined to only 80 in the 1980s.

In the 1990s a rice-drying facility and some short-lived businesses occupied the site, but the population has been estimated at 30 since 1990.

Leslie

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