Calliham

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way down in McMullen County, there's a place with a story that starts real quiet and gets loud in a hurry. Back in 1918, the whole settlement amounted to a post office tucked inside the store of one H.H.

McGuffey. They called it Guffeyola. Not exactly a name that rolls off the tongue, but it was theirs.

Now, that might have been the whole story, a little post office in a little store in a big stretch of South Texas. Except the ground had other plans. Between 1917 and 1922, oil and gas discoveries hit that country, and hit it hard.

Overnight, Guffeyola went from a quiet store to a tent city. Then the tents gave way to shotgun houses, row after row of them, and just like that, a town was born out of raw ambition and raw petroleum. And here's the line that ought to make every San Antonio resident sit up straight: this place piped the first natural gas to San Antonio.

The first. Out of that tent city, out of those shotgun houses, came the line that lit up a city. Then in 1923, the name changed.

Guffeyola became Calliham, honoring J.T. Calliham, rancher and townsite owner. A town renamed for the man who held the land it stood on.

And the story didn't stop there. Calliham still produces oil. Still exports fine rocks and petrified wood.

Some places boom and go quiet. This one just kept going.

What the marker says

In 1918 had a post office, Guffeyola, in store of H.H. McGuffey. After oil and gas discoveries, 1917-1922, was tent city, then town of shotgun houses. Piped first natural gas to San Antonio. Name was changed 1923 to honor J.T. Calliham, rancher and townsite owner. Still produces oil and exports fine rocks and petrified wood.