Erath

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Erath, out in McLennan County. Now, most crossroads have a story, but this one starts with a name, and that name carries some weight. The community of Erath was named for George B.

Erath, a soldier and legislator who surveyed Waco in 1849. So right there you've got a man of some standing lending his name to a stretch of fertile ground tucked between the Brazos and Bosque rivers. And fertile it was.

Settlers came, drawn by that rich agricultural land, and by 1850 Erath was already one of the first voting precincts in McLennan County. One of the first. That tells you people were putting down roots fast.

At its peak, this rural community had itself two churches, a school, two cotton gins, a gristmill, stores, and a blacksmith shop. Now picture that for a moment. That is not nothing.

That is a community with ambition. The Erath post office opened in 1896 and ran until 1907. The Erath School kept its doors open until the 1920s, when it consolidated with China Spring.

And then, quietly, the way so many small Texas settlements do, Erath began to thin out. The 20th century rolled through mostly sparse. By the time the City of Waco annexed the area in the 1980s, of everything that had once made Erath a going concern, only the Baptist church was still standing.

Two churches, a school, two gins, a gristmill, stores, a blacksmith shop. And one church remained. That's not a failure.

That's a testament. Something held on.

What the marker says

This locale is one of the early settlements of McLennan County. Erath was one of the first voting precincts in the county in 1850, with settlers attracted by fertile agricultural lands between the Brazos and Bosque rivers. The community was named for George B. Erath, a soldier and legislator who surveyed Waco in 1849. At its peak the rural community had two churches, a school, two cotton gins, a gristmill, stores and a blacksmith shop. Erath post office operated from 1896 to 1907, and the Erath School was active until consolidating with China Spring in the 1920s. The area was sparsely populated through most of the 20th century; by the time the City of Waco annexed the area in the 1980s, only the Baptist church remained from historic Erath. (2008)