Shive

Duane's take

The way I tell it, I'm working straight from the official marker record on this one. So let's talk about Shive, Hamilton County, Texas. Pull up a chair close to the fire, because this is a town that got built layer by layer, and every layer left its mark.

The land around Shive started filling up in the 1870s. The first families to put down roots here, the Connels, the McKinleys, the Nettletons, and the Roddys, they came into an area that had nothing but potential and a whole lot of wide open. No school, no post office, no store.

Just land and will. Then 1883 arrives, and somebody decided the children needed a place to learn. They called it Union Hill, the first school in the area, and they set up a board of trustees to make sure it held together: A.

S. Andrews, J. H.

Clark, and L. C. Sloneker.

Three names worth remembering. A school is where a community starts to believe in itself. Now here is where the story gets a name.

January 18, 1884. That is the day the post office opened, established right there inside the first store in town. That store was owned by J.

W. and R. L. Shive, and R.

L. Shive himself served as postmaster. The town took the family name, and that post office inside that first store was the beating heart of it.

But 1885, well, 1885 brought a new wave. The first German settlers arrived: Louis Bethke, August Kelm, Albert Kunkel, Paul Neese, Joe Schwartz. Five names, five families, and they were only the beginning.

Others followed, and they brought with them new traits of culture and economy, as the marker puts it. A town that was one thing began quietly becoming something richer. And by 1908?

Shive had four churches. A school. Four stores.

Two blacksmiths. A hotel. A gin.

A barber. And two doctors. You think about those earliest settlers standin' in raw open country in the 1870s, and then you hold that picture of Shive in 1908, and you understand something true about the way a place grows.

Not all at once. One family, one school, one post office, one wave of newcomers at a time. That is how Shive got built.

What the marker says

In area settled in 1870s. Some of the earliest settlers were Connels, McKinleys, Nettletons, and Roddys. First school, Union Hill, opened in 1883; A. S. Andrews, J. H. Clark, L. C. Sloneker, trustees. Post office, established Jan. 18, 1884, was in first store, owned by J. W. and R. L. Shive (with R. L. as postmaster). In 1885 came the first German settlers: Louis Bethke, August Kelm, Albert Kunkel, Paul Neese, Joe Schwartz. Others followed, giving town new traits of culture and economy. By 1908, Shive had 4 churches, a school, 4 stores, 2 blacksmiths, a hotel, a gin, a barber, and 2 doctors.