Historical Marker
El Campo
El Campo, Wharton County · Texas
Erected 1990
El Campo grew on hay and rice before oil. The Handbook of Texas says that in the early 1900s the town was the second largest hay-shipping center in the United States. Rice followed: by 1904 seventy rice farms and 126 pumping stations worked around town, and two mills merged in 1914 into the firm later called ELCO. At one time rice hulls were pressed into bricks as an experimental building material. Czech settlers were numerous enough that a Czech-language paper, Svoboda, appeared in 1931; Culp Krueger later bought it and merged it into the town paper.
What the plaque says
El Campo Begun as a camp on the New York, Texas, and Mexican Railroad in 1882, El Campo initially was known as Prairie Switch and served as a supply and shipping center for area ranchers. By the 1890s the town had grown to include a post office, homes, businesses, schools, and churches. An influx of European immigrants produced a strong ethnic heritage. Fires in 1896 and 1901 destroyed much of the downtown area, but the city rebuilt. Oil and gas discoveries in the 1930s provided an economic boom, although agriculture remains the primary local business. (1990)
Where it stands
29.19861, -96.26716 · Directions
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