Chriesman ( ) is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

Burleson County, Texas Burleson County ( ) is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, the population was 17,642. Its county seat is Caldwell. The county is named for Edward Burleson, a general and statesman of the Texas Revolution. ...

, United States. The population was 30 in 2000. It is located within the Bryan-College Station metropolitan area.

History

The community was named in honor of Horatio Chriesman (1797–1878), a surveyor and early settler from

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

who moved to Texas as a member of the

Old Three Hundred The "Old Three Hundred" were 297 grantees who purchased 307 parcels of land from Stephen Fuller Austin in Mexican Texas. Each grantee was head of a household, or, in some cases, a partnership of unmarried men. Austin was an American approved in ...

."CHRIESMAN, HORATIO," Handbook of Texas Online (https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fch35), accessed June 15, 2014. Uploaded on June 12, 2010. Published by the

Texas State Historical Association The Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) is an American nonprofit educational and research organization dedicated to documenting the history of Texas. It was founded in Austin, Texas, United States, on March 2, 1897. In November 2008, the ...

. Alexander Thomson Jr., brought the first settlers to this area in the 1830s. They named it Yellow Prairie for the tall, yellow grass in the prairie. It became a stop on the

Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway The Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway (GC&SF) was chartered in Texas in 1873 to build a railroad from Galveston, Texas, to Santa Fe, New Mexico. By 1886, it had built from Galveston to a junction in Temple, Texas, which was founded by the co ...

after a track was built in 1880 and went by Yellow Prairie until the early 20th century. A post office was established here in 1880 and was named Yellow Prairie in 1884. The next year, it was renamed Chriesman. The community had 100 residents, a

gristmill A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and Wheat middlings, middlings. The term can refer to either the grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist is grain that h ...

, a

cotton gin A cotton gin—meaning "cotton engine"—is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation.. Reprinted by McGraw-Hill, New York and London, 1926 (); ...

, and churches for the

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...

and

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a historically Reformed Protestant tradition named for its form of church government by representative assemblies of elders, known as "presbyters". Though other Reformed churches are structurally similar, the word ''Pr ...

congregations. A

cucumber The cucumber (''Cucumis sativus'') is a widely-cultivated creeping vine plant in the family Cucurbitaceae that bears cylindrical to spherical fruits, which are used as culinary vegetables.San Antonio San Antonio ( ; Spanish for " Saint Anthony") is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in Greater San Antonio. San Antonio is the third-largest metropolitan area in Texas and the 24th-largest metropolitan area in the ...

-based Price-Booker Manufacturing Company in 1904. Ten years later, Chriesman had telephone service, a bank, four general stores, a cotton gin, and 175 residents. The population grew to 200 in 1925, lost half in 1930, and was reduced by half again in 1950. There were eight businesses in Chriesman when the cucumber plant closed in 1930. The population stopped at 30 from 1972 through 2000. There were two churches, several scattered houses, and a cemetery in 1988.

Geography

Chriesman is located just west of

Texas State Highway 36 State Highway 36 (SH 36) runs from Freeport to Abilene. It was designated as the 36th Division Memorial Highway between Cameron and Sealy by the Texas Legislature in 1985. History SH 36 was originally proposed on November 21, 1917, as a rou ...

on the

BNSF Railway BNSF Railway is the largest freight railroad in the United States. One of six North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 36,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and over 8,000 locomotives. It has three Transcontinental railroad, transcontine ...

, northwest of

Caldwell Caldwell may refer to: People * Caldwell (surname) * Caldwell (given name) * Caldwell First Nation, a federally recognized First Nation in southern Ontario, Canada Places Great Britain * Caldwell, Derbyshire, a hamlet * Caldwell, Ea ...

in northwestern Burleson County.

Education

Chriesman had its own school in 1890. The community is served by the Caldwell Independent School District.

References

External links

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Burleson County, Texas Unincorporated communities in Texas Bryan–College Station