Naples

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll let the words do the work. You know, some towns are born out of ambition, and some are born out of spite. Naples, Texas, sits square in the second camp.

Up the road, about three miles north, there was a town called Wheatville. Prosperous, the marker says. Doing just fine, thank you very much.

And then the railroad came through, and the railroad did not come through Wheatville. It passed Wheatville right by. Now, when a railroad bypasses your town, that is not a polite nudge.

That is a verdict. So a rival town rose up right there at the tracks, right where the railroad actually ran, and that new town pulled the rug out from under its neighbor in the most official way possible: it took the post office. January 1882, the post office moved down to the railroad town, and the place went by the name Station Belden.

That held for a while. Then February 1895, the U.S. Post Office Department stepped in and changed the name to Naples, and Naples it has been ever since.

Now, in those early days, the hardwood forests were the engine of the economy. Timber country. But those forests don't last forever, and sure enough, when the hardwood was depleted, the economy came back around to what this part of Texas has always known best: cattle and agriculture.

Wheatville is three miles north and mostly a memory. Naples is right here on the railroad. That's the difference between being in the path of progress and being passed by it.

What the marker says

When railroad by-passed prosperous town of Wheatville (3 mi. N), this rival town emerged at railroad. Post office moved here Jan. 1882, and was called Station Belden. Name was changed to Naples by U. S. Post Office Department, Feb. 1895. With depletion of hardwood forests, economy returned to cattle and agriculture.