Papalote Creek

Papalote began as three villages that merged in the mid-1880s. Lower Papalote, called Steenville, grew around R. W. Steen's store; Central Papalote, Cravensville, built a Catholic church in 1871; Upper Papalote lay at the Murdock place. A post office at Lower Papalote ran from 1860 to 1866, and another, first spelled Popolote, opened at Cravensville in 1870 and took the Papalote spelling in 1883. A school of 81 pupils met in 1876, and a central school replaced it in 1888. A hurricane in 1919 destroyed the Baptist church.

What the plaque says

Papalote Creek A few yards south passes Papalote Creek, crossed by the fierce Karankawa Indians who found kite-shaped pebbles and named it Papalote, which means "kite-shaped" or "wing-shaped". Along its banks came the leaders of the Power and Hewetson colonists, holding Mexican land grants in the 1830's. On its Rata tributary there is evidence the Mexican Army camped on its way to suppress the Texas Revolution. By 1857 the town of Papalote had emerged. It was the center of entertainment for the county, boasting of a circular dance hall built by cowboys trading steer yearlings at $3 a head for lumber. There were rooster fights, ring tournaments and horse races. In 1886, when the railroad came, the town was booming. After the turn of the century, however, Papalote began to die away. A land company sold lots to settlers from as far away as Hawaii. Expecting to grow citrus fruits, they were disillusioned when the first killing frost doomed the project. Threats of Pancho Villa's raids continued as late as 1916, when women and children hid in a brick schoolhouse. In 1948, Main Street was bypassed by U.S. Highway 181. Today there is no post office--only a rural route for the few remaining households. (1965)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lake Corpus Christi State Park — 18 mi
  A lake park in the South Texas brush country above Mathis, on a reservoir of the Nueces, with a Civilian Conservation Corps refectory and more than 200 bird species.
• Lipantitlán State Historic Site — 19 mi
  Five undeveloped acres on the Nueces named for the Lipan Apaches who camped here, where Mexico built an earth-and-rail fort that Texans took early in the Revolution.
• Texas State Aquarium — 27 mi
  A nonprofit aquarium on the tip of Corpus Christi Beach built around the Gulf and the Caribbean, with the largest coastal wildlife rescue center in Texas behind the exhibits.
• USS Lexington Museum on the Bay — 27 mi
  An Essex-class carrier of 1943 moored off North Beach, the Blue Ghost that Tokyo Rose kept reporting sunk, and the Navy's training carrier for nearly three decades after.

More markers nearby

• St. Paul — 5.2 mi
• Aransas Creek Settlers — 8.2 mi
• Plymouth Oil Company and Plymouth Oilers — 10 mi
• First United Methodist Church of Sinton — 10 mi