Winkler

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way back in 1846, the first settlers started trickling into this piece of Texas. It was quiet country, the kind that takes a while to convince folks it's worth staying in.

But stay they did, and by 1860 several farms were already up and running. Then came the Civil War, and when that chapter closed, people came in greater numbers. By 1879, there was enough going on out here that the town of Winkler got itself organized.

Now here's a detail worth savoring: the community sat right on the line between Navarro and Freestone counties. Both counties could claim it. Not many towns can say that.

On April 28, 1879, a post office opened up, and it landed on the Freestone County side of that line, with a man named W. S. Grayson serving as postmaster.

The post office was named in honor of Clinton McKamy Winkler, born in 1820, died in 1882, a Confederate veteran, a county judge, and a state legislator. A man who had clearly left his mark on Texas long before this little town took his name. Within a year of all that organizing, the town was already showing some ambition.

Several homes and businesses had set up shop. Things were looking promising. Then the railroad came.

Now, a railroad was good news and bad news depending on where you were standing. For Winkler, the news was this: when the railroad pushed into the area, people started following the tracks, and in 1905 a good number of them followed those tracks right over to a new town called Streetman. Population shifts, the marker calls it.

That's a polite way of saying a town can lose its footing fast when something shinier shows up down the road. But Winkler didn't fold. A small population hung on.

The post office kept its doors open all the way until 1973. Nearly a century of letters and parcels and folks checking for news from elsewhere. That's a kind of quiet stubbornness that deserves some respect.

Meanwhile, the community was building something lasting in another way. The Winkler County Line Common School District was created in 1896. For the first couple of years, classes were held in people's homes, which tells you something about how much that community wanted its children educated.

Then in 1898, a man named D. T. B.

Grayson donated a piece of land, and on that land they built something that might be the most efficient structure in Navarro County history: a building that served as a Masonic Lodge, a school, and a church all at once. Three institutions, one roof. That is Texas practicality at its finest.

Also in 1898, on January 16 to be precise, the Winkler Baptist Church was organized, with C. C. Lee stepping in as its first pastor.

And before 1940, if you needed groceries, dry goods, a blacksmith, or somebody to gin your cotton, Winkler had you covered. The town of Winkler never became a big name on the map. But it fed people, schooled children, buried the dead, sorted the mail for nearly a hundred years, and refused to disappear when the railroad tried to render it irrelevant.

Sometimes that's exactly the story worth telling.

What the marker says

Settlers began arriving in this area in 1846, and by the 1860 several farms were in operation. Settlement increased after the Civil War, and the town of Winkler was organized in 1879. Due to its location, the community was a part of both Navarro and Freestone counties. With W. S. Grayson as postmaster, a post office was established on April 28, 1879, on the Freestone County side and named in honor of Clinton McKamy Winkler (1820-1882), Confederate veteran, county judge, and state legislator. Within a year, the town boasted several homes and businesses. The advent of the railroad to the area caused many population shifts, including one away from Winkler to the new town of Streetman in 1905. Winkler continued to exist with a small population, however, and the post office continued in operation until 1973. The Winkler County Line Common School District was created in 1896. Classes were held in homes until 1898, when D. T. B. Grayson donated land on which a combination Masonic Lodge/school/church was built. Winkler Baptist Church was organized January 16, 1898, with C. C. Lee as first pastor. Prior to 1940, businesses in Winkler included grocery and mercantile stores, blacksmith shops, and gins. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986