Cartwright is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

in Wood County, located in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

. According to the Handbook of Texas, Cartwright had a population of 61 in 2000.

History

The area in what is known as Cartwright today was first settled as early as 1851. It was originally called "the Barrens" because of its isolation and the danger from

wolves The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, and gray wolves, as popularly un ...

. It was most likely named for local settler Matthew Cartwright. A post office was established at Cartwright in 1894 and remained in operation until 1907. During that time, it had a store and a Baptist church. Two years later, the community had eight businesses, which included two

carpenters Carpentry is a skilled trade and a craft in which the primary work performed is the cutting, shaping and installation of building materials during the construction of buildings, ships, timber bridges, concrete formwork, etc. Carpenters t ...

, a

barber A barber is a person whose occupation is mainly to cut, dress, groom, style and shave men's and boys' hair or beards. A barber's place of work is known as a "barbershop" or a "barber's". Barbershops are also places of social interaction and publi ...

, a gin, and a mill. The population was 100 in the 1930s and had a seasonal industry and several scattered houses. It went down to 75 in 1945 and remained there until the mid-1960s. It further declined to 61 from 1968 through 2000. The 1988 county highway map showed two businesses, a church, and a community center in Cartwright.

Geography

Cartwright is located on Farm to Market Road 1643, northeast of Quitman in north-central Wood County.

Education

A log school was built here in 1874. The Cartwright family donated land for another school to be built in 1882. It burned to the ground in 1895 and was replaced by another building with two classrooms. It had 92 White students enrolled in it that next year. It had two music teachers and three regular classroom teachers in 1905, serving 149 students. There were two schools in Cartwright in the 1930s, and both closed sometime after 1960. Today, the community is served by the Quitman Independent School District.

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Wood County, Texas Unincorporated communities in Texas