Palo Alto College

San Antonio, Texas

Charlotte, Texas

Savannah Perez & Toni Miranda	Spring 2004
History 1302	Hines

Orgins & Founding Fathers:

Charlotte, Texas is southwest of San Antonio about 45 miles and it's west of Jourdanton, Texas with a population of 1,700 people. Charlotte was founded in 1910 by Jordan Campbell, T.H. Zanderson. The Atascosa County History book stated that “In 1910 the town site acreage was owned by Jordan Campbell and T.H. Zanderson” (pg.17). Later in the Atascosa County, Deed of records Volume 38 we found out that there were not only two but three founders of Charlotte. The land was on Tobey Ranch which was owned by A.L. Matlock, making him the third founder of Charlotte, Texas.

The deed stated that for $1 it was their land, this deed was dated May 31, 1910 Atascosa County, Deed of records Volume 38 (pg.430-431). Charlotte at first didn’t really serve a purpose for its creation, only that the people there needed a place to live, leading to the development of a small town. Later the people realized that they were living on very fertile land great for farming, and it was a great beginning for an agriculture business to start. The deed put many restrictions on the land which also legally transferred the title of 620 acres of the Tobey Ranch to the Charlotte Town-site Corporations’ name. This deed also said that portions of Charlotte were to be conveyed to the San Antonio Rio Grande and the Tampico Railway Company for the construction of the railroad. In 1911, J.E. Franklin, from Missouri, offered to construct a railroad through the county (The Atascosa History book). Many of the townspeople and landowners helped by providing land and some money to finance the project. George F. Hindes and M.M. Davis was reported to have given thousands of acres of land. (The Atascosa History book pg.49)

The original layout of the town of Charlotte in 1910 was done by J.F. Edwards. It was in the form of a wagon wheel with every street representing a spoke. (The Atascosa History Committee pg. 17) If you were to visit the town now and look at it from above, you can no longer see the wagon wheel, because like everything else in life things change.

While reading the Atascosa County History book, we discovered a man by the name of Dr. Charles Simmons, who had also helped in the development of Atascosa County. He named the town after one of his three young daughters, named Charlotte. He later also named two more towns with his two other daughters names, in Atascosa County.

Historical Landmarks:

J.M. Couser built the first store in Charlotte, Texas in 1910 it was located where today the Thompson Building is on Highway 140. Later Mr. Couser sold the building to W. M. Wilson in 1912. Many of the other merchants of Charlotte were mostly of German and Irish heritage, such as S. Fleischman, A.F. Hahn, A.K. McBride, John Neal, Hugh Dixon, and Barrow and Crouch. Another store you can still see today is where the Shannon Drug Store was located presently on Highway 140. The Drug store was a two-story building, the top floor being used for public meetings, dances, and even for worship. Throughout the years the second story also changed into the town’s dentist and doctors’ office, and later into a beauty salon. We were informed by Shawnna Greer, (1st grade teacher in Charlotte and resident since 1985) of the nearest dentist named Dr. Alfred Charles Hunter who lived in Pleasanton. He would usually travel by horse and buggy to the community, to do all of his practice from 1913 until the early 1930s. The reason why he moved from the top story of the Drug store was because of a fire in the later part of 1913 that destroyed the second story. He chose not to reconstruct. The first school was established in 1913, this school was located over the bakery shop which at one time was the town dance hall. Unfortunately, the building was destroyed by a fire that same year. The next year the classes were held at the Methodist Church with a total of 40 students.

The school only went up to the seventh grade, had two classrooms, and only two teachers. The teacher’s names were Mr. Crump and Miss Ester Watson, later Mr. Crump was replaced by Mr. Allen as the headmaster. The big celebration happened for the people of Charlotte when the first train arrived; consequently, it was a symbol of a new beginning for the town. They believed it would bring more money, people, jobs, and better technology to their small town.
HISTORICALLY SIGNIFICANT STORIES?:

Charlotte did not have a water well in 1910 and it wasn’t until 1948 that the city drilled one. We were told that the residents had to get their water from a family by the name of the Olsons. This family had their own private water well. Marilyn Watts gave us this information, and also recalled the family selling the water to others for five cents a gallon. All of this happened simply because the city didn’t have enough funds to drill its own water well. Now the town has two water towers, so you ask why two? Well, Darlene Drawn from Charlotte’s city hall said, "The first tower went dry which forced them to build another one". The first water well was drilled in 1948 for 12,000 gallons by the Pittsburgh-Des Moines Steel Company of Dallas, Texas. They made a 50,000 gallon steel tank on a tower of 100 feet tall, this contract was dated April 12, 1948.

After finding the story on the water tower we were very interested in how Charlotte got their electricity. We didn’t find the date electricity was given to the people of Charlotte, but found that an electric company signed a 10-year contract with the town on September 1948. During this time the small town of Charlotte also appointed a city secretary to do jobs such as treasurer, tax assessor and collector for the city. A funny thing about this story is the fact of her pay, which was only $100 a month. In 1919 Charlotte received on of the worst storms they had ever experienced, which damaged their crops and hurt Charlotte economically. Many of the residents have a hard time remembering the day and the type of storm it was, but we have heard it was a tornado and others say it was a hurricane. This storm was in either August or September recalls Marilyn Watts. This storm was found in very few articles being called “ the gulf storm” that caused many little towns to reconstruct.
Economy:

If you look at Charlotte today you could imagine that it was primarily known for farming back in the 1990s, but what other sources of income did the residents of Charlotte have? Charlotte was successful in the oil industry, oil was discovered in Charlotte in the early 1940s. Thanks to the oil industry the population of Charlotte increased. These oil wells in Charlotte could produce up to 3,000 barrels of oil a day, but it wasn’t very common it usually did about five to 10 barrels a day states Mr. Watts. Mr. Watts was a major oil developer that worked for Humble Oil and Refining Company. Today oil is still the main factor in the economy of Charlotte and Atascosa County. In the Atascosa County History book it states “in 1982 the sale of crude oil and natural gas from Atascosa County accounted for $119.2 million of the $41.1 billion wellhead value of Texas petroleum production”(pg.12). Back then oil was referred to as “Black Gold” because of the big amount of money it produced. Of course at first Charlotte was known for farming cotton, but as many know today Charlotte no longer produces cotton. Many believe that the reason why Charlotte isn’t a big town today is because of the failed cotton growing industry. At one time there were wagons in line for days just to get their cotton ginned, and at this time there were four cotton gins running around the clock in Charlotte. (Stated Marilyn Watts) In 1910 a bale of cotton ranging from 450lbs. to 500lbs. ran for about $22.90/ton, later the prices dropped to $16.20 per ton.

Since cotton was no longer produced in Charlotte, it was replaced with peanuts as their new principal crop. “...40,688acres of peanuts were grown in the county with a total of only about 18,000 acres presently being grown”(Atascosa County History Committee pg.10). The only other crop that was grown in Charlotte was watermelon in the 1940s, watermelons were very high priced. Despite that, Charlotte doesn’t make a lot of money it’s a great place to raise a family, and that is still one of the main reasons why people move there. Charlotte is known for having a good educational school system, that doesn’t put a lot of pressure on sports activities or issues you find in the big city schools.
Connections To Course Themes:

One of the first connections that we saw was with capitalism. In Charlotte capitalism stopped growing because of the cotton farming; which in turn, made the town lose money and force them to close down many of the factories and lay off workers that would help make and prepare the cotton.

You also can see that Charlotte had racial issues, of course not anymore but in the early 1990s there were problems. The Hispanics were known to live on a certain part of town segregated from the whites, the part of town called the Westside. The Hispanics even had their own Spanish speaking elementary school, the school only went up to the fourth grade and after that the children would be transferred to the Charlotte’s Public School. All of this information leads us to believe that the whites had some kind of negative feelings toward Hispanics. There was a clear separation between the races.

Just like many other towns in South Texas, the area that became Charlotte once had slaves. Slaves were needed to tend to the precious cotton fields, and make the land useable. Some may have not liked owning the slaves. For example Thomas Jefferson he said many times slavery was wrong. However, of all people he must have had the most slaves on his plantation. In his view like many other southerners that was just the way it needed to be, in order for things to get done and done in an orderly fashion. This is what the landowners of the area that became Charlotte were faced with, they needed the slaves to tend to their cotton and watermelon fields.

Technology was booming, and so was Charlotte, Texas. Charlotte received a railroad passage through the town which brought them into the swing of things with the big cities. They were now able to order things from the Sears catalog, and get other foods to their small town, which they didn’t have before but could get now.

Another factor Charlotte had to go through was the serious dry points of the summers they have. In Charlotte the summer season can get up to 103 degrees, and no sign of rain for their crops. This coincides with what the people of the Plains of Texas went through with their crops and it also relates with what the farmers went through in the Dust Bowl period.
Interview:

Name: Shawnna Greer ( 1st grade teacher and Charlotte resident since 1985) Q: What brought you to the town of Charlotte?
A: I was born in West Texas and had came down for a rodeo and ended up meeting my husband who is from Charlotte. We had made the decision to raise our family in Charlotte, Texas.
Q: Is Charlotte a town of generations?

A: Charlotte is a town that the young tend to leave, yet they have a tendency to come back in their later years. Simply because they still have family living here, and some how everyone seems to be related in a small town like Charlotte.
Q: What is the worst thing about living in Charlotte?
A: Well… there isn’t anything here, you have to take a drive to get anywhere.
Q: Do you know of anything interesting for people to coming to Charlotte?
A: Charlotte is a friendly town, when I first moved here, and didn’t know anyone a group of people came over and offered assistance to me and all of my family from moving things to making sure my children had a ride to and from school. I liked that very much since now it’s hard to find very friendly people like in the city.
Q: What would you say is the greatest thing about living in Charlotte?

A: I really like the small school environment, they don’t have big classes and your children don’t have to be athletic like in larger schools to get recognized for their hard work.
Q: We know that Charlotte is mostly Hispanic now; Do you find this town to be prejudices?
A: Even though Charlotte has mostly Hispanic people and most have family here, color doesn’t seem to be a barrier and we all seem to get along fine.
Q: What is Charlotte’s main business?
A: Charlotte is a town for hunting and some farming, but mostly for oil production.
Photos:

WEBSITES:
Handbook Of Texas
Map of Charlotte
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Greer, Shawnna ( 1st grade teacher, resident of Charlotte since 1985) personal interview. March 22, 2004. She was a great help with out her information this page would not be what it is, a very special thanks to Mrs.Greer.

Atascosa History Committee, Atascosa County History. Taylor Publishing Company, 1984. This source gave us a lot of help with figures on the town and historical ownership information.

Atascosa County Deeds of Records Volume 38. This helped us on figuring out who were the rightful owners of the land, and what the deeds looked like.

Drawn, Darleen, secretary of city hall. This Short interview was very helpful in giving us information on the water tower and why there were two water towers in Charlotte, Texas.

Watts, H.L. retired oil business man. This short interview was also very helpful to give information on the oil business going on in Charlotte and also the history of the oil business in Charoltte.

Watts, Marilyn. Life time resident of Charlotte. This Short interview with her helped us gather information on the water tower and how one family would charge others to use their sources. She also gave us insights on the issue of race in Charlotte.

Luna, Rick. Atascosa County Constable. Short interview. Rick Luna gave us information on why he thinks people would like to move to Charlotte. We also discussed the crime charlotte has and reasons for its small population.

Return to Small Town Research Projects Index