McFaddin Post Office

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, as best as Duane can render it for you. Now, out here in Victoria County, there's a little board-and-batten building with a gable front and a shed-roof porch that has seen more name changes and address forwarding than most folks see in a lifetime. It starts with a ranch settlement.

The McFaddin Ranch settlement, to be precise. Rolling along just fine under that name until 1906, when the St. Louis, Brownsville, and Mexico Railroad came through and decided things needed a little rebranding.

They renamed the place Marianna. Just like that. Railroad says it, it is.

But a post office needs somewhere to live, and in 1907 one opened up right inside the Marberry and Stubblefield General Store. You can picture it: somebody asking for their letters between picking up a sack of flour and a tin of tobacco. That arrangement held for a few years before the post office packed up and moved to the McFaddin Mercantile in 1911.

Still Marianna. Still the railroad's name on the door. Then in 1913, the post office moved again, to this very building.

The one still standing. The board-and-batten one with that gable front and that porch inviting you to sit a spell. Now here's where a man by the name of A.M.

McFaddin enters the picture with an opinion. He had a request. He wanted the name changed back.

Back to McFaddin. And in 1923, that is exactly what happened. Sometimes persistence is the whole strategy.

For decades after that, mail traveled in and out of this little building on the train, right up until 1962. One building. Three locations of a post office before it even arrived here.

Two names for the town. And a whole lot of letters finding their way home.

What the marker says

The McFaddin Ranch settlement was renamed Marianna in 1906 by the St. Louis, Brownsville, & Mexico Railroad. A post office, opened in the Marberry and Stubblefield General Store in 1907, moved to the McFaddin Mercantile in 1911, and to this building in 1913. At the request of A.M. McFaddin, the name was changed back to McFaddin in 1923. Mail was delivered and sent out on the train until 1962. The board-and-batten building features a gable front and shed-roof porch. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1990