The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 48, July 1944 - April, 1945 Page: 97
617 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 24 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Texas Collection
few years ago with the building of a new highway. For many years
the pretentious structures of the iron industry stood.
Trinity Mills, near present town of Carrollton in Dallas County.
Was famous for its race track. First called Witt's Mill, then Poor's Mill,
and then Trinity Mills. When station was made at Carrollton, the old
town declined.
Washington-On-The-Brazos, in Washington County. Originally called
La Bahia. Three times capital of the Republic; first capital of the Munic-
ipality of Washington; first capital of the Jurisdiction of Brazos; first
county seat of Washington County. All public buildings and some private
residences of the old town were built of brick, some being three stories
high. The town was laid off in 1835 by John W. Hall and had a population
in the fifties of some 1,500. The refusal of the citizens of the town to
pay the Houston & Texas Central Railroad a bonus of $11,000 in 1858
caused the railroad to be built to Navasota and the old town gradually
declined until now little remains.
Old Tascosa, about forty miles northwest of Amarillo, is perhaps
the best known ghost town in Texas. Here, on the north bank of the
Canadian River, where once four blocks of business buildings served a
motley frontier population, nothing remains but the rock courthouse and
a few crumbling adobe structures. Tascosa developed from the sheep
camp called Plaza Atascosa. In 1876, Harry Kimble opened a blacksmith
shop and general merchandise store, and a saloon soon followed. A north-
bound cattle and freight trail crossed the Canadian at the old Tascosa ford.
The second town in the Panhandle, Tascosa soon won the title of "The
Cowboy Capital of the Plains," and no community of the old west ever
had a more hectic existence.
The above list is by no means complete, but I hope that it may be of
use to the Association. I have been told by early settlers in Texas of at
least one hundred towns that have faded from the scene. So far I
have only been able to check and authenticate the existence of less than
half of these ghost towns.
In a privately printed book entitled Colonel Bill Ted Dealey
tells the story of William Greene Sterett, charter member and
first Washington correspondent of the Dallas News. The story
is reprinted from the October 1, 1935, Golden Jubilee Edition
of the News. Mr. Dealey points out in the foreword that
"Colonel Bill" was one of the last of the "old time 'personal'
journalists" with whose "passing has gone some of the color
of the press." By recording the flavor of Sterett's life the
author has helped to preserve the "heritage of fine traditions
[left] to the present generation of newspaper writers" by these
old-timers. Mr. Dealey in writing the story has fulfilled his
purpose, which he states in the following words:97
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 48, July 1944 - April, 1945, periodical, 1945; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth146055/m1/101/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.