Glen Flora, Texas

Glen Flora is an unincorporated community in Wharton County, Texas, United States. According to the Handbook of Texas, the community had an estimated population of 210 in 2000. It is located within the Greater Houston metropolitan area.

History

John C. Clark and Robert Kuykendall of Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred were some of the first settlers in Glen Flora. C. H. Waterhouse relocated to Wharton County around 1890 and bought substantial parcels of land on the Colorado River's west bank. To tenant-farm his land, he invited German families from his native Pennsylvania. A cotton gin and a sizable sugar mill were built by him across the river from his house. The pumping facility was touted as being the biggest in Texas. The Waterhouse Rice and Sugar Company underwent multiple name changes as well as ownership changes. When partners were added, it was first known as Waterhouse; after that, it changed its name to Pittsburg-Glen Flora Sugar Company; after being sold, it was given the name Kincheloe Irrigation Company (as it was located in one of the Kincheloe leagues). R. H. Hancock then resold it under the name Wharton County Irrigation Company. Almost a mile west of the sugar plant, the German people settled. Waterhouse designated five acres of that land for a chapel and a cemetery. Vesperville was the name given to the community by the locals. They constructed St. John's Lutheran in 1895; its services were only held in German. During its stay at this location, the church edifice was completely destroyed three times: by a hurricane in 1909, by a tornado in 1910, and by a fire in 1918. The next year, the congregation relocated the church to Glen Flora, but the brand-new building was obliterated by a tornado in 1929. The congregation chose to relocate the fifth building to Wharton and rename it St. Paul's Lutheran because there was already a church there with that name. This decision was made in 1941. The townsite of Glen Flora was founded in 1898 on the east side of the Colorado River, just across from the Waterhouse factory, following the building of the Cane Belt Railroad. William Thomas Eldridge and William Dunovant were two of the principal railroad investors. One of these two men has a street named after him in Glen Flora, one on either side of the railroad tracks. Eldridge fatally shot Dunovant in 1902 as he was on one of their trains. August 1900 saw the opening of the local post office, and May 1902 saw the formation of the Glen Flora Town Corporation, with Waterhouse serving as its president. 1906 saw a reorganization, with G. C. Gifford serving as president. William Hood, who co-owned and ran a mercantile establishment in the neighborhood with R. M. Martin, proposed the name Glen Flora; it was also the name of Hood's plantation. Hood later constructed a large three-story brick building there after the store was relocated to the townsite. The community expanded quickly and housed a wide variety of companies, including several mercantile shops, two cotton gins, a meat market, a drugstore, a hotel, a bank, a gristmill, a lumberyard, and eventually a movie theater, and a telephone company. To transport its cane and cotton to the Cane Belt Railroad for shipping, the sugar mill was permitted by the county commissioners to build a rail line that ran down the middle of the bridge over the Colorado. Mules would pull the carriages. Rich farmlands surround Glen Flora. Rice, corn, and cotton became significant cash crops after sugarcane's fall; before scab put an end to that business, potatoes were farmed and exported out by the carload. A sizable commercial fruit orchard was started in the early 1980s, and a neighborhood store for sales was constructed. After 1960, Glen Flora's population started to fall, and as residents started migrating to Wharton, businesses there started to collapse. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, sometimes known as the "Cane Belt," stopped providing service in 1992. The right-of-way was sold or given back to the contingent landowners once the railroad track, ties, and gravel bed were taken out. The population was 210 from 1980 through 2000.

On November 21, 1992, an F1 tornado destroyed several barns northeast of the community. Four homes were damaged by another tornado on November 23, 2004.

Glen Flora has a post office with the zip code 77443.

Geography

It is located at the junction of FM 102 and FM 960, northwest of Wharton, south of Eagle Lake and south of the unincorporated community of Egypt.

Education

Glen Flora School District was established sometime after 1900 and had 37 students and one teacher in 1905. There were two separate schools for Black children in the community. The school for White students joined the Crescent school district in 1948 until it became a part of the larger El Campo Independent School District. Both black schools soon came together as one and was named for principal Thomas Lane Pink. Starting in 1961, all students went to either El Campo or Wharton Independent School District after schools were desegregated.

Notable people

* Harry H. Johnson, World War II soldier, was born in Glen Flora.
* Iris Kyle, professional female bodybuilder.

Gallery

File:Glen Flora TX FM 960.JPG, Old business district in Glen Flora on FM 960
File:Glen Flora TX Post Office.JPG, US Post Office on FM 960, also called Bridge Street
File:Glen Flora TX Nursery.JPG, Glen Flora Farms, Inc. a wholesale nursery on FM 102

References

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Unincorporated communities in Texas
Unincorporated communities in Wharton County, Texas