Townsite of Wentz

Duane's take

The way the marker at Wentz tells it, here's the story as I've got it for you. Out here in McMullen County, there was once a town with ambitions, real, honest-to-goodness ambitions, and a lifespan that makes a mayfly look like a tortoise. This is the story of Wentz.

Pull up close and listen. It goes fast. It has to.

The town did too. Wentz was founded as a market center for a forty-four-thousand-acre farm development. Forty-four thousand acres.

That's not a farm; that's a kingdom. And like any kingdom worth its salt, it needed a capital. The townsite was named for C.C.

Wentz, born in 1872, who served as agent for the Two Rivers Ranch Company. Before he ever set foot in Texas, Wentz had already made himself a well-known businessman back in West Virginia. Now here he was, out on the south Texas plain, promoting a townsite on behalf of absentee Kansas landlords who were betting big on land they'd never had to walk across in July.

For three years, 1914 to 1916, the town thrived. People came. About two hundred of them by 1916.

And they weren't roughing it, either. When the train pulled in at Three Rivers, a limousine (a limousine, out here in this brush country) was hired to meet it, haul the mail back to Wentz. That detail alone ought to tell you what kind of town this was supposed to be.

Then came 1917. And with it, a severe drouth. Not a dry spell.

Not a lean year. A severe drouth. And most of the citizens moved.

Just like that. The post office held on until 1921. The two schools lasted all the way to 1948 before they closed too.

C.C. Wentz himself lived until 1957, long enough to outlast just about every institution he'd helped build. That limousine.

Those two schools. That post office. All of it, swallowed back up by the dry South Texas air.

The land that started it all is still out there. The town, though, is just a marker and a memory.

What the marker says

Founded as market center for a 44,000-acre farm development. Thrived for 3 years, 1914-1916. Wentz townsite was named for C.C. Wentz (1872-1957), agent of the Two Rivers Ranch Company. He promoted the townsite for the absentee Kansas landlords, and was also a well-known businessman in West Virginia before coming to Texas. The town grew to have about 200 people by 1916. A limousine was hired to meet each train at Three Rivers and bring the mail to Wentz. A severe drouth in 1917, though, forced most citizens to move. The post office closed, 1921; the two schools in 1948. 1968