DUANE
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Duane's take
The marker tells it this way, and I'm just here to pass it along. Now settle in, because this one's about a man who looked at a stretch of South Texas land and saw something most folks would've walked right past. Preston Rose Austin.
Born November 11, 1872, in Harrison County. Grew up in Victoria County. And if the world had any idea what was coming, it might've paid closer attention.
Austin made his name first as a stock raiser, earning himself a real prominence in that world. But a man like that doesn't stay still for long. In 1902, he became a partner in the Refugio Land and Irrigation Company, which went out and acquired large landholdings in what would become northern Refugio County.
Now, that land was just sitting there, waiting on someone with enough patience to figure it out. Austin ran a series of agricultural experiments, and when the dust settled, he had his answer. Cotton.
The land was best suited to raising cotton. So the company took those large holdings and divided the property into small cotton farms, then sold them to German and Bohemian farmers looking for a place to put down roots. But here's where it gets interesting.
You can't have farmers without somewhere to buy goods, worship, send their children to school. Austin knew that. So he founded two market towns to serve those settlers.
The townsite of Tivoli was platted in 1907 by J.W. Ward. Then Austwell, named for Austin himself and one of his partners, Jesse McDowell of Pennsylvania, was platted in 1912 by L.A.
Gueringer. And these weren't bare-bones little crossroads towns, either. The company provided each community with a church, a school, a store, a hotel, and a cotton gin and mill.
They even brought in modern conveniences, electricity and a telephone system, out to communities that might otherwise have waited years for such things. And Austin wasn't finished. He and his associates financed a branch line of the Missouri Pacific Railroad connecting Tivoli and Austwell with Victoria.
That line was completed in 1912. Preston Rose Austin died September 29, 1929. But by then, northern Refugio County had been transformed, town by town, farm by farm, rail line by rail line, by one far-sighted businessman who simply refused to see empty land as empty.
What the marker says
A far-sighted businessman who contributed much to the development of South Texas, Preston Rose Austin was born in Harrison County and grew up in Victoria County. After achieving prominence as a stock raiser, Austin became a partner in the Refugio Land and Irrigation Company, which acquired large landholdings in this area in 1902. Austin conducted a series of agricultural experiments and determined that the land was best suited to raising cotton. The company divided the property into small cotton farms for sale to German and Bohemian farmers. Austin then founded two market towns to serve the settlers. The townsite of Tivoli was platted in 1907 by J.W. Ward. Austwell, named for Austin and one of his partners, Jesse McDowell of Pennsylvania, was platted in 1912 by L.A. Gueringer. The company provided each community with a church, school, store, hotel, and cotton gin and mill, as well as modern conveniences such as electricity and a telephone system. Austin and his associates also financed a branch line of the Missouri Pacific Railroad, which connected Tivoli and Austwell with Victoria when it was completed in 1912. Austin's energetic ventures resulted in extensive settlement of northern Refugio County.