Borden 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 ...

in southwestern

Colorado County, Texas Colorado County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 20,557. Its county seat is Columbus. It is named for the Colorado River of Texas. The county was founded in 1836 and organized the nex ...

, United States. According to the

Handbook of Texas 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 ...

, the community had a population of 60 in 2000. The community was known as Harvey's Creek Settlement before the

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

. After the war ended,

Gail Borden Gail Borden Jr. (November 9, 1801 – January 11, 1874) was an American inventor and manufacturing pioneer. He was born in New York state and settled in Texas in 1829 (then part of Mexico), where he worked as a land surveyor, newspaper publish ...

returned to Texas, and at what would become Borden, built houses for himself, his brother, and his sons. He renamed the settlement Bordenville. The

Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway The Buffalo Bayou, Brazos, and Colorado Railway (B.B.B.C. or B.B.B. & C.), also called the Harrisburg Road or Harrisburg Railroad, was the first operating railroad in Texas. It completed its first segment of track between Harrisburg, Texas (now a ...

opened its line through the Borden area in 1872.

Geography

Borden is located between

Interstate 10 Interstate 10 (I-10) is the southernmost transcontinental highway in the Interstate Highway System of the United States. It is the fourth-longest Interstate in the country at , following I-90, I-80, and I-40. It was part of the origina ...

and

U.S. Highway 90 U.S. Route 90 or U.S. Highway 90 (US 90) is an east–west major United States highway in the Southern United States. Despite the "0" in its route number, US 90 never was a full coast-to-coast route. It generally travels near Int ...

on the

Southern Pacific Railroad The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials) was an American Railroad classes#Class I, Class I Rail transport, railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was oper ...

, west of

Columbus Columbus is a Latinized version of the Italian surname "''Colombo''". It most commonly refers to: * Christopher Columbus (1451–1506), the Italian explorer * Columbus, Ohio, the capital city of the U.S. state of Ohio * Columbus, Georgia, a city i ...

, northeast of

Weimar Weimar is a city in the state (Germany), German state of Thuringia, in Central Germany (cultural area), Central Germany between Erfurt to the west and Jena to the east, southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together w ...

, and west of

Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

in southwestern Colorado County.

Education

Gail Borden built a school for white children and a

freedmen A freedman or freedwoman is a person who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, slaves were freed by manumission (granted freedom by their owners), emancipation (granted freedom as part of a larger group), or self- ...

's school for black children, which continued to operate in 1874. In 1948, the Borden area schools were consolidated into the Weimar Independent School District.

Government and infrastructure

In 1938, the Texas Highway Department announced plans to construct a lake and roadside park in Borden. They are the only visible infrastructure of years gone by in Borden. The lake was to be constructed along US 90, then called the Houston-San Antonio State Highway No. 3. The Feb. 18, 1938, '' Eagle Lake Headlight ''announced that the new seven-acre lake “destined to become one of the main attractions", along the Houston-San Antonio highway. Work began on the project by February 1938, with "a modest beginning as a roadside park,” according to the ''Headlight''. The lake was to be placed about a quarter mile from what was the existing highway and directly west of State Highway 3, which eventually became Interstate 10. State Highway 3 bypassed Borden at what is now Hatterman Lane. A creek then running through the site was to be dammed to fill the lake. "Workmen are busy now in damming up the creek, pulling down a hill in this vicinity, and utilizing icdirt from this elsewhere to form banks for the new lake," M.B. Hodges, state highway division engineer from Yoakum told the ''Headlight'' in 1938. Initial plans for the lake included eventual stocking with fish and a multiyear moratorium on fishing before opening the lake to sports enthusiasts.

References

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