Montvale

Duane's take

Here's the story as the official marker tells it — Duane's version, straight from the Texas Historical Commission's own words. Now, out here in Sterling County, the land has a way of swallowing whole towns without so much as an apology. Montvale is one of those towns.

And the story starts before Montvale was even Montvale. Back in 1884, a pioneer settlement called St. Elmo picked up and relocated — lock, stock, and whatever else early Texans hauled in a wagon — to a new spot.

That new spot became Montvale. At the time, this was still Tom Green County territory, and Montvale sat right on the Shafter Military Trail, an early road running out from Fort Concho. A road like that meant traffic, and traffic meant a town had a fighting chance.

By 1886, they had a community school up and running — the earliest in the area, the marker is careful to note. That's no small thing on the frontier. Three years later, the town got officially platted by H.

B. Tarver, the surveyor for Tom Green County. And here's a detail worth savoring: it's believed the settlement took its name from a nearby hill that appeared in Tarver's own field notes as Mt.

Vale. The surveyor mapped the land, and the land gave back a name. Montvale wasn't just a dot on a map, either.

R. B. Cummins ran a saddle and harness shop — practical work in cattle country.

B. Z. Cooper kept a general store and a blacksmith shop.

There was a Methodist church, a hotel, a post office, a variety of stores. For a stretch of time, Montvale had the makings of something permanent. But then, about 1889, that same R.

B. Cummins — the saddle man himself — started a whole new town upriver. He called it Cummins, which, well, you can guess who it was named for, and he planted it 5.4 miles northwest.

Now there were two settlements competing for the same thin slice of West Texas. And then came 1891. Sterling County was newly created, and Sterling City — just 3.5 miles northwest — was named the seat of government.

Both Montvale and Cummins began to decline. When the county seat lands somewhere else, the commerce, the courts, the future — they all follow. That's not a slow drift; that's a verdict.

Today, a community cemetery is all that remains of Montvale's townsite. A school, a church, a hotel, two competing merchants, a road from a frontier fort, a surveyor's field notes, and a name pulled from a hill — all of it folded back into the Sterling County earth. The marker says Montvale played an important role in the area's development, and given what came after, that's not flattery.

Sometimes the towns that disappear are the ones that made the surviving towns possible.

What the marker says

The community of Montvale was established in 1884 when the pioneer settlement of St. Elmo was relocated here. Then a part of Tom Green County, Montvale was located on the Shafter Military Trail, an early road from Fort Concho. A community school, the earliest in the area, was in operation by 1886. Three years later the town was platted by H. B. Tarver, the surveyor for Tom Green County. It is believed the settlement was named for a nearby hill referred to in Tarver's field notes as Mt. Vale. Early businesses in Montvale included the saddle and harness shop of R. B. Cummins and the general store and blacksmith shop of B. Z. Cooper. The town was also the site of a Methodist church, a hotel, a post office and a variety of stores. About 1889 R. B. Cummins started the town of Cummins (5.4 miles northwest) upriver from Montvale. Both settlements began to decline in 1891 with the establishment of Sterling City (3.5 miles northwest) as the seat of government for the newly created Sterling County. A community cemetery is all that remains of the townsite of Montvale, a pioneer settlement that played an important role in the area's development. (1982)