DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker's the source here, and I'm just the one bringin' it to life — so here's what the record says about a place that almost was. Out in McMullen County, there's a stretch of South Texas ground that carries the weight of a dream that never quite took hold. By 1902, somebody had drawn lines on a map and declared a townsite — sixteen hundred acres of it — right there on land belonging to a man named Samuel Crowther.
They named the place in his honor, which is about the most a man can ask for, and for a moment, it looked like something real might grow out of that caliche soil. Then came S.A. Hopkins in 1903, who purchased the whole operation and set about promotin' it with what the marker calls — and I love this word — extensive promotion.
Extensive. They had visions of an oil and farming center. They had early oil discoveries, which is the kind of thing that makes a man's eyes go wide and his tongue start working overtime.
And yet. And yet, all that extensive promotion, all those early discoveries, all that sixteen hundred acres of Texas possibility — it failed to develop the community into what they'd imagined. The dream just sort of dissolved back into the brush.
By 1921, Old Crowther was a ghost town. Not a struggling town, not a quiet town — a ghost town. The kind of place where the wind does most of the talking.
In 1933, a man named George T. Jambers bought it. All of it.
A whole ghost town, sitting there in McMullen County, named after a man, dreamed on by another, promoted extensively by a third, and finally purchased by a fourth. Sixteen hundred acres. One name on a marker.
That's what's left of the dream they had for Old Crowther Ranch.
What the marker says
Townsite of 1600 acres established by 1902. Named in honor of Samuel Crowther on whose land it was located. Purchased by S.A. Hopkins in 1903. Extensive promotion failed to develop community into oil and farming center despite early oil discoveries. Became a ghost town by 1921. Bought by George T. Jambers, 1933. (1968)