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Lindsey: How was Kingsbury originated?

Leslie: Well there were a couple of housed here before Kingsbury actually became a town and got a name. Starting in 1887 a train came here and turned around. this was a supply dump for the railroad. The railroad ended here in Kingsbury and dumped supplies here for 2 years so the track could be added on to and continue going. The train came out of Houston everyday. Then there was a engineer by the name of William S. Kingsbury who had a vision. He visioned what was then just land and a supply dump as some day becoming a booming town, so he bought all the land and sold it off little by little. He was the one the town got its name after. He also named all the streets that are still here today. When the railroad found out what the din, he got fired but he said at least I got a town named after me.

Lindsey: What this town ever booming at any time?

Leslie: Well it never became what William S. Kingsbury thought it would, but it had quite a lot. In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s there weree two cotton gins here. One was the Coach Gin and one was the Smith Gin. The cotton was then taken from Kingsbury to Galveston and then put on big ships and shipped overseas. We also had a merchant store which still exists today as a merchant store, we had a drugstore, we had two hotels, and we had a bank that went broke in 1929. The owner of the bank was spending all the money on dry oil wells and when th bank ran out of money, he claimed there was a robbery. They knew this wasn’t true and sent him to the penitentiary.

Lindsey: What happened to the hotel buildings and such?

Leslie: In 1880 everything burned down expect the bank. Then they rebuilt some of the things across town, and those are the buildings that are still standing in Kingsbury today by the railroad tracks. Then in 1949 we got a hardware store, that my house was built from and then they went out of business.

Lindsey: Was there very much trouble here?

Leslie: Well there were two Saloons on each side of town. There were always fights between the two and sometimes they had shootouts, but that was a long time ago. Nobody talks about it today though because they grandkids of the two bar owners still live here in town and they are all friends now. Nobody would want to stir things up between the two.

Lindsey: Has Kingsbury always been about the size it is now?

Leslie: No it hasn’t. It grew during the railroad and when I was a kid because there was so much here. Now days it stays around 500 to 600 people considering all that is here is a post office, two cafes, and two bars.

Lindsey: Is there a story that keeps getting told from generation to generation?

Leslie: Oh yes I have a funny one! One Saturday night my grandfather who was pretty young at the time and all his friends were at the train depot here in Kingsbury. Two of the young boys got in a fight on the train platform and as the train was pulling away from there all the people were sticking there heads out of the window because they wanted to see the fight. Then one of my grandfathers friends said did you see all those hats on the peoples heads sticking out of the window? Yeah why? Well the boy said I have an idea. So next Saturday the boys went down to the train platform and two of them acted like they were fighting. They told my grandpa get a long pipe and get on the ground. As the train pulls away we will start fighting and all those people will stick there heads out the window and when they do, knock there hats off with pole. So they did and the next day they went and sold the hats for 10 cents a piece. This became a joke and they did it every Saturday and sold them on sunday for money. Well one Saturday night my grandpa went to swing and knock a hat off, but he hit a train conductor in the head. So he turned the boys in and told the sheriff, on the next train through put them on it and send them to Seguin were we will get them off the train and put them in jail. All the boys went to jail for days until all the people of Kingsbury raised enough money to get the boys out of jail.