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Maxwell - ca 1880
Maxwell is located eight miles northwest of Lockhart on State Highway 142. The town was named for Thomas Maxwell upon whose league the town is situated. Maxwell’s earliest settlers came from Alabama. After the War Between the States, the land was used for cattle ranches and there were a number of cattle drives through the area. During the 1880s, German families from the “Old Country” began to move in and developed prosperous farms, producing cotton, wheat, corn, oats and barley. The community assumed a diverse social culture between the 1890s and the 1930s as migrant Hispanic families moved in to provide additional labor for the big cash crop of cotton which, in turn, fostered the construction of three cotton gins. Twenty German families organized a Lutheran Church council in 1886 and services were held in homes, a brush tabernacle or the small Methodist Church building. The congregation began building their first church in 1891 – a wooden building that was later destroyed in a fire. A second structure, Gothic-style brick, was completed in 1924 that is still in use. In 1887, the MKT railroad was built through the area and the town site was moved from Kegley Hill to its present site. A common school district was formed in 1892. Later, a disastrous fire nearly destroyed the business area on two occasions, resulting in the entire commercial area being rebuilt with brick. By 1929 the population had grown to about 400. There were numerous retail stores, three gins, a restaurant, a drug store, and a doctor’s office. Several school buildings were constructed and students were educated in the community until the school was consolidated with Lockhart in the late 1940s. Slowly the population declined and, by 1990, there were only 185 residents. Source - Plum Creek Almanac, Vol. 19, No. 1, Spring 2001 and Caldwell County Kin: The First 150 Years published by the Genealogical and Historical Society of Caldwell County, November 2000 The Plum Creek Almanac is a project of The Genealogical and Historical Society of Caldwell County. Please send us your comments.The Genealogical and Historical Society
of Caldwell County Copyright © 1963-2013 Updated 09/03/2013 |
