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Stairtown ~ ca 1922
Stairtown (pronounced STAR-town) is located about four miles south of Prairie
Lea at the junction of FM 671 and State Highway 80. Mrs. Cassie Ann Gary owned
and operated a store on the mail route between Luling and Prairie Lea to provide
supplies and groceries to the surrounding farms. A narrow lane wandered down
nearby Proctor Hill (named for a nearby landowner) and wandered on to Joliet.
Oscar Stair, a merchant in Luling, owned much of the land in the surrounding
area. Discovery of oil in southwestern Caldwell County in the 1920s created an
enormous demand for housing and Mr. Stair built a number of rent houses in the
lane behind Gary’s store. When the Rafael Rios #1 well was brought in by Edgar
B. Davis in 1922, the subsequent oil boom soon saw the road from Stairtown to
Joliet filled with houses, shacks, and tents lining both sides of the road.
Once
the oil exploration and drilling phases were completed, workers began to move on
to other areas of the county and state. A much smaller number of men who worked
as pumpers were (and still are) needed to maintain and monitor the producing
wells. In the 1940s, several businesses still served the scattered houses in the
community. Today, a few houses still line the highway and County Road 119.
Population in the 1990s was listed as 35.
Sources –
1. Caldwell County Kin: The First 150 Years published by the Genealogical and
Historical Society of Caldwell County. November 2000, C-43
2. Historical Caldwell County: where roots intertwine, originally published by The Mark
Withers Trail Drive Museum, Caldwell County, Texas, 1984, pages 225-226
3. Plum Creek Almanac Volume 20 No. 1, Spring 2002, page 45
4. The New Handbook of Texas, Texas State Historical Association, Vol. 6, page 53
5. www.texasescapes.com
The Plum Creek Almanac is a project of
The Genealogical and Historical Society of Caldwell County.
 The Genealogical and Historical Society
of Caldwell County Copyright
© 1963
Updated
10/15/2019
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