Maydelle

Maydelle drew most of its first residents from the nearby communities of Gent, Java, Mount Comfort and Pine Town. Three landowners with grants around the prison laid out the townsite in 1910. By 1914 it had about 150 people, two churches, four general stores, a bank, a cotton gin and a drugstore. The population peaked at 450 in 1929, dropped to 150 in the Depression and reached 250 by the early 1990s. The Maydelle school district merged into Rusk's on July 1, 1989.

What the plaque says

Maydelle In 1906, the Texas State Railroad built to this area for timber to fuel iron manufacturing at the penitentiary in Rusk. The branch prison established at the railhead was called Camp Wright. When Rusk native Thomas Campbell became governor, he persuaded the Legislature to extend the line to Palestine, where it met the I&GN Railway. The line brought new settlement to the Camp Wright area, and in 1910, residents platted the new town of Maydelle, named for the governor's daughter, who sang at the townsite's dedication. The town was an early center for cotton, timber and tomato production, but its population, like in other rural Texas towns, declined by the latter part of the 20th century. (2003)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas State Railroad Excursion Train — 16 mi
  A round trip of about 25 miles of track between the Palestine and Rusk depots through the Piney Woods, on a line built by prison labor and reopened as a tourist railroad in 1976.
• Caddo Mounds State Historic Site — 17 mi
  Three earthen mounds of an ancestral Caddo village and ceremonial center on the old El Camino Real, settled about A.D. 800 and still sacred to Caddo people, with a grass house and visitor center.

More markers nearby

• Gent Village — 2.2 mi
• Mewshaw State Sawmill and Maydell CCC Camp — 3.9 mi
• Dialville — 5.8 mi
• Texas State Railroad — 6.4 mi