Jourdanton

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. In 1909, two men stood on the eastern edge of a ranch and decided to build a town. One of them was Jourdan Campbell, born right there in Atascosa County in 1867, a merchant and county commissioner who knew the land and the people.

The other was Theodore H. Zanderson, born in 1854, a Dane whose business interests centered on wool and mohair, and whose ambitions ran just as wide. The two had first crossed paths in San Antonio, and somewhere in that meeting, a partnership took shape.

Together they established a community on the eastern edge of their Toby Ranch property, and they named it Jourdanton, for Campbell. Now, a town on paper is one thing. A town with a railroad is another thing entirely.

So Campbell and Zanderson went to work on a man named Dr. Charles Franklin Simmons, a land speculator who had previously worked with Campbell, and they convinced him to lay rail right through the new townsite. On September 4, 1909, the first train came through Jourdanton.

You can almost hear that whistle. From there, things moved fast. Utilities, a bank, a newspaper called The Atascosa Monitor, a post office, several businesses, a school, churches, a cemetery.

A town, a real one, taking shape in the South Texas brush country. And some folks weren't content to stop there. Residents, encouraged by all that rapid growth, started talking bigger.

Led by newspaper owner Ralph Roy Smith, who went by the nickname Railroad, they began promoting the idea of Jourdanton becoming the county seat. In 1910, Atascosa County residents voted to move the county seat from Pleasanton to Jourdanton. By 1911, the town incorporated.

By 1914, it had two railroads and the population had doubled. Many of its residents were farmers and ranchers, rooted in the same land that Campbell himself had been born into. Then came the 1940s, and the ground beneath Jourdanton gave up another gift.

Oil and natural gas reserves were discovered nearby, and the town grew again. Later, the discovery and mining of lignite to the south helped sustain the economy through the turns. The Smith Village and Atascosa Estates developments added more.

The railroads stopped running by the 1960s, but Jourdanton didn't stop with them. The town Jourdan Campbell and Theodore Zanderson laid out on the edge of a ranch in 1909 is still here, still growing, still carrying its history forward. That's not nothing.

That's a town.

What the marker says

In 1909, Jourdan Campbell (1867-1938) and Theodore H. Zanderson (1854-1927) established the Jourdanton community, named for Campbell, on the eastern edge of their Toby Ranch property. Jourdan Campbell was born in Atascosa County, and was a merchant and county commissioner. He first met Zanderson, a Dane whose significant business interests centered on wool and mohair, in San Antonio. The two entrepreneurs convinced Dr. Charles Franklin Simmons, a land speculator who had previously worked with Campbell, to lay rail through the new townsite; the first train came through Jourdanton on September 4, 1909. Jourdanton soon had utilities, a bank, a newspaper (The Atascosa Monitor), a post office and several businesses. The community also had a school, several churches and a cemetery. Residents, encouraged by the settlement's rapid growth, and led by newspaper owner Ralph Roy "Railroad" Smith, began to promote the idea of Jourdanton becoming county seat. In 1910, Atascosa County residents voted that the county seat be moved from Pleasanton to Jourdanton. In 1911, the town incorporated, and by 1914, it had two railroads and the population had doubled. Many residents were farmers or ranchers. By the 1940s, oil and natural gas reserves were discovered nearby, which led to another period of growth; later, the discovery and mining of lignite to the south also helped sustain Jourdanton's economy. The town grew further with the additions of the Smith Village and Atascosa Estates developments. Although the railroads stopped running by the 1960s, Jourdanton continued to grow, and remains a community rich in culture, heritage and diversity. (2009)