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Sullivan

Sullivan, Texas: The Railroad Stop That Time Forgot

Sullivan, in Guadalupe County, began in 1876 as a small switch stop on the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway. The switch was named after Jim Sullivan, the engineer who piloted the first passenger train from Houston to San Antonio in 1877. Its location, northeast of Seguin and not far from Luling, gave it some utility as a rural rail Read more…
Steward's Mill

Stewards Mill, Texas: A 19th-Century Farming Community Frozen in Time

Stewards Mill, located in northwestern Freestone County, is one of the county’s oldest communities and a preserved example of early Texas rural life. Early Settlement and the Gristmill The settlement began in 1849 when Washington Steward, a native of South Carolina, built a water-powered gristmill on Mill Creek. His mill quickly became an important agricultural hub, drawing farmers from as Read more…
Sterling

Sterling, Texas: The Forgotten Ghost Town That Gave Rise to Calvert

Sterling was one of the earliest Anglo-American settlements in Robertson County, Texas. Established in the 1830s and named in honor of Sterling Clack Robertson, empresario of Robertson’s Colony and signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, the community grew in the fertile Brazos River bottomlands. By the 1850s it had developed into a notable local center with businesses, institutions, and Read more…
Sterley

Sterley, Texas: Exploring the Rise and Fall of a South Plains Ghost Town

Sterley, located in northeastern Floyd County, Texas, began as a railroad town in the late 1920s. It was established as a stop along the Fort Worth and Denver South Plains Railway, built to connect Lubbock to the Red River and beyond. The town was named after W. F. Sterley, a general agent of the railway. In December 1928, a post Read more…
Starrville

Starrville, Texas: An Early Dry Town with a Lost Railroad Connection

Starrville, located in Smith County, was founded in 1852 when the Reverend Joshua Starr, a Methodist minister originally from Alabama, purchased 640 acres of the Hall Survey. Before that, the area had been known as Gum Springs, a settlement that served as a stop along the Dallas–Shreveport stagecoach road as early as 1849. The location at a crossroads made it Read more…
Spurlin

What Happened to Spurlin, Texas? A Lost Railroad Community

Spurlin was a small ranching and farming community in northwestern Hamilton County, Texas. It was established in the early 20th century along the Stephenville North & South Texas Railway, which was completed through the area in 1907–1908. The settlement lay about four miles southeast of Carlton and was tied closely to the surrounding agricultural economy. The townsite was officially promoted Read more…
Spanish Fort

Spanish Fort, Texas: Indigenous Triumphs, Cowboy Boots, and a Ghost Town Legacy

Spanish Fort, Texas, is a small unincorporated community in Montague County. It began as an 18th-century Taovaya–Wichita village, the site of a major 1759 battle where Indigenous forces defeated a Spanish expedition. Settlers later misidentified the ruins as a Spanish fort, giving the town its name. In the late 1800s it served as a cattle trail stop and the birthplace Read more…
Sowers

Sowers, Texas: The Vanished Town with a Bonnie & Clyde Ambush and a Lasting Legacy

The community of Sowers traces its origins to pioneer Edmund D. Sowers, who arrived in the area during the mid-19th century. Most sources cite 1848 as the year of his settlement, though some local accounts suggest he arrived closer to 1856. Sowers opened a general store in the late 1870s, and around this nucleus the community gradually took shape. His Read more…
Soash

Soash, Texas: The Ghost Town Built on Big Dreams and Left to Dust

Soash, Texas, founded in 1909 by land promoter William P. Soash, was a speculative farming town on the South Plains. Boasting early amenities like a brick bank, the Hotel Lorna, and an electric plant, it thrived briefly through aggressive promotion. Drought, poor soil, and competition from nearby Lamesa soon doomed it, and by 1917 the post office closed, leaving only Read more…
Smeltertown

Discover Smeltertown: The Vanished Village Beside El Paso’s ASARCO Smelter

Smeltertown was established in the late 1880s along the Rio Grande, just outside of El Paso, to house employees of the Kansas City Consolidated Smelting and Refining Company. The company, later absorbed into the American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO) in 1899, built its large copper and lead smelting plant in 1887. The settlement quickly grew into a distinct community Read more…