Gustine

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Settlers started trickling into this part of Comanche County in the 1870s, and among the earliest were members of the Blankenship family, who had inherited land granted to two brothers, Christopher and A. K.

Clark, for their military service to the Republic of Texas. That's the kind of ground you build a town on. And build they did.

That first settlement sat about three-fourths of a mile northeast of where you're standing right now, and they called it Evergreen. It had homes, a store, a blacksmith shop, a cotton gin, and a school. A real community, rooted in place.

Now, Evergreen might have stayed right where it was, except the 1880s had other ideas. When a new road opened up between Comanche and Hamilton, the citizens of Evergreen didn't sit around and watch the traffic pass them by. They moved their whole town, picked it up and set it down right here on the new route.

That takes a certain kind of determination. A U.S. post office followed in January of 1888, and it took the name of its first postmaster, a man by the name of Samuel Gustine. And the name stuck.

By the early twentieth century, Gustine was something to talk about. Two cotton gins. Three poultry companies.

A grist mill, retail stores, telephone and electric utilities, a newspaper, and a bank. Then in 1910, the Cotton Belt Railway laid a line right through the area, and the boom that followed was real. It lasted, thriving, until the railway was discontinued in the 1930s.

But here's the part that says something about this place: when the railroad went quiet, State Highway 36 was built right along that same railroad right-of-way, keeping Gustine on the map and on the route. Some towns, when the road shifts, they just fade. Gustine moved once to find the road, and when the road tried to leave again, this town made sure it stayed.

What the marker says

Settlers began arriving in this area of Comanche County in the 1870s. Among the pioneers were members of the Blankenship family, who inherited land granted to brothers Christopher and A. K. Clark for Republic of Texas military service. The first settlement, located about three-fourths of a mile northeast of this site, was named Evergreen. It included homes, a store, blacksmith shop, cotton gin, and school. In the 1880s, when a new road opened between Comanche and Hamilton, the citizens of Evergreen moved their town to this site to be on the route of the new road. A U.S. post office opened in January 1888, and was named for postmaster Samuel Gustine. By the early 20th century, the town of Gustine boasted homes, churches, and businesses, including two cotton gins, three poultry companies, a grist mill, retail stores, telephone and electric utilities, a newspaper, and a bank. The Cotton Belt Railway built a line through the area in 1910, causing an economic boom until it was discontinued in the 1930s. State Highway 36 was built on the railroad right-of-way, however, maintaining the town's most important transportation route. (1992)