Booth

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Booth, out in Fort Bend County. Now settle in, because this is the kind of story that starts with one man stepping off into a new place and ends with a whole town where there wasn't one before. Freeman Irby Booth, who went by F.I., came to Richmond in 1885.

Richmond, Texas. And it wasn't long before Richmond gave him something worth staying for, because in 1889 he met and wed Mildred Ryon Wheat. The two of them purchased land and built a home right here.

That could have been the whole story. A man, a woman, a patch of Texas ground. But F.I.

Booth had something bigger turning in his mind. Come the 1890s, he went all the way to South Carolina and brought back thirty families. Thirty.

Not a few neighbors, not a handful of cousins. Thirty families, uprooted and replanted in Fort Bend County to work the land. They put in cotton, corn, and rice.

They built houses. They built the Mt. Zion Church.

And the settlement grew, the way settlements do when people have both purpose and elbow grease. By the early nineteen hundreds, this place had a post office, a sawmill, a lumberyard, and a cane syrup mill. The Booth Public School opened its doors in 1908 and kept them open all the way to 1947.

The Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad came through and served the town. Sugar cane and cattle went out into the wider world. This was a going concern, a real place with real heft.

F.I. Booth died in 1931, and after that the town's economic focus gradually changed. That word, gradually, does a lot of work.

It doesn't mean the place collapsed. It means the world shifted under it, the way it does under most things. But here's what the marker wants you to know, and I think it's the right note to end on: that early agricultural foundation is still remembered.

Thirty families. One man's vision. Cotton, corn, and rice growing up out of Fort Bend soil.

Some stories don't need an ending so much as they need a witness, and that's what we are today, passing through Booth country.

What the marker says

Freeman Irby (F.I.) Booth came in 1885 to Richmond, where he met and wed Mildred Ryon Wheat in 1889. They purchased land and built a home here. In the 1890s, Booth brought 30 families from South Carolina to work the land, planting cotton, corn and rice. These families built houses and the Mt. Zion Church, and the settlement grew. By the early 1900s, the town had a post office, sawmill, lumberyard and cane syrup mill, and the Booth Public School operated from 1908 to 1947. The Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railroad served the town; local products included sugar cane and cattle. F.I. Booth died in 1931, and the town's economic focus gradually changed. Its early agricultural foundation is still remembered. (2003)