Site of Old Communities of Mazeland and Wilmeth

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Out here in Runnels County, two little communities once shared the same stretch of land, the same school, and, for a while, the same mailman, depending on whose turn it was. The first of the two was Mazeland, planted about two and a half miles southwest of where you're standing right now.

It got its start in 1903, when a post office and a store opened up on A. B. Hutchinson's Ranch.

Now, the marker says the community was probably named for the corn, the maize, that grows in the area. Probably. That one word is doing a lot of honest work, and I respect it for that.

The next year, 1904, a one-room schoolhouse went up one mile to the west, and that little building would go on to serve both communities before this story is done. By 1906, the settlement had grown enough that folks decided this section deserved a name of its own. They chose to honor Joe Wilmeth, a popular banker out of Ballinger.

That's how Wilmeth came to be. Now, Wilmeth didn't get its own post office until 1907, and in the meantime somebody had to fetch the mail from Mazeland. So the citizens worked out a system: they took turns.

Horse-drawn wagons, one neighbor after another, making the run so everybody got their letters. There is something quietly neighborly about that arrangement, the kind of thing that makes a community actually feel like one. But 1909 came around, and both post offices, Mazeland's and Wilmeth's, were discontinued.

Just like that, two names, two post offices, one shared schoolhouse, and all the turns hauling mail in a wagon, folded quietly into the past.

What the marker says

Mazeland (2 1/2 miles southwest) was founded in 1903 when a post office and store opened on A. B. Hutchinson's Ranch. Community was probably named for the corn or "maize" which grows in the area. A one-room school, built 1 mile west (1904), later served both places. By 1906 the settlement had enlarged, so this section was named in honor of Joe Wilmeth, a popular Ballinger banker. Before Wilmeth Post Office was established (1907) citizens would take turns bringing mail from Mazeland in horse-drawn wagons. In 1909, however, both post offices were discontinued.