Drasco Community

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, before this stretch of Runnels County road had a name worth putting on a map, folks just called it County Line. Simple enough.

Honest, even. But things have a way of changing when somebody decides they want a post office. That somebody was R.

O. Kerr, general store owner, and a man who apparently had opinions about names. Kerr applied for a post office, and on December 16, 1904, he got one.

Got it under the name Drasco. Just like that, County Line was gone, and Drasco was born. And Kerr himself served as postmaster, right up until 1909.

Now, rewind just a few years before that post office came through. Back in 1902, the community was already putting down roots in a more lasting way. The first schoolhouse went up that year, built on land donated by a man named Tom Puckett.

That's the kind of thing a town remembers. Or ought to. Drasco kept growing, and in its thriving years, this little community could claim two stores, a cotton gin, a blacksmith shop, a five-room school building, and two churches.

Two churches. For a community that never, not once, had a population exceeding thirty people. Now that is something.

The Baptist church, I am pleased to report, is still active. The school held on too, for a good long while, until 1947, when it consolidated with the Winters schools. The post office site, by the way, sits right across the street to the south, if you want to have a look.

Drasco never got big. Never tried to be. But it had a gin, a smith, a store on each end, a couple of congregations, and kids in school.

Thirty people, and they built all of that. You tell me that's not a town.

What the marker says

Originally called County Line. Named changed when general store owner R. O. Kerr applied for a post office and was granted one under name Drasco on Dec. 16, 1904. (Post office site is across street, south.) Kerr was postmaster until 1909. First school house was built in 1902 on land donated by Tom Puckett. School consolidated with Winters schools in 1947. During Drasco's thriving years, there were 2 stores, a cotton gin, a blacksmith shop, a 5-room school building and 2 churches -- Baptist church is still active. Population never exceeded 30.