Salem

Salem was sold as Colony City. The Higginson Colonization Company, organized in 1910 by D. G. Musselman and three other real estate men, advertised the development under that name and arranged with the railroads to bring settlers free of charge. When the post office opened in 1911 the settlers named the town for the Biblical Salem. H. E. Stolzfus was the first postmaster, then Musselman, who ran it from his general store and cream-testing station. Farming did not succeed, many people left, and others turned to cattle or rice.

What the plaque says

Salem The community of Salem ("Peace" in Hebrew) developed in northeast Victoria county in the early 20th century. In 1910, Higginson Colonization Company mapped out acreage in this area to be developed as a townsite, orchards and farms. The company was organized by David Gehman (D.G.) Musselman and others, with Musselman working as colonization agent. He owned tracts of land which would become the heart of the Salem community. Many settlers came to Salem from other states, including Ohio, Kansas, Indiana and Pennsylvania. Settlers purchased small tracts of land in the community, also known as "Colony" and "Colony of Brotherly Love." In 1911, a post office opened; soon, the town also had stores, a two-room schoolhouse and a multi-denominational church named Brethren in Christ. By 1915, dozens of settlers lived in Salem, with more residing nearby. Most early residents were farmers. By the 1930s, ranching also became a common activity. An early civic leader was D.G. Musselman's wife, Rose (Lambert), who worked as a Mennonite missionary in Armenian Turkey before returning to the United States. She worked for a time as Salem's postmaster, and operated a general store and filling station out of the couple's homestead. Another important local figure was the Reverend T.A. Long, who pastored Salem's church. The community declined in the late 1930s. Since agricultural yields were inconsistent, the small farm and orchard tracts in the community lost their appeal. However, today Salem continues to be remembered as a historic rural community and an early attempt at development in northeastern Victoria County. (2008)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Museum of the Coastal Bend — 13 mi
  Victoria College's museum of thirteen thousand years on the middle Texas coast, from Clovis hunters and Karankawa potters to La Salle's lost Fort St. Louis and the first ranches.
• De León Plaza — 14 mi
  The central plaza of Guadalupe Victoria, the only predominantly Mexican colony in Texas, founded by Martín De León in 1824 and taken from his family after 1836.
• Chisholm Trail Heritage Museum — 24 mi
  A cattle-country museum in Cuero's 1903 Knights of Pythias Hall, telling the Guadalupe Valley's 1866 drive north and the Sutton-Taylor feud that bloodied DeWitt County.
• Fannin Battleground State Historic Site — 28 mi
  The open prairie east of Goliad where Fannin's retreating column formed a square short of the Coleto Creek timber on March 19, 1836, and surrendered the next day.

More markers nearby

• Fort St. Louis — 9.0 mi
• Saint Joseph Catholic Cemetery — 9.0 mi
• Saint Joseph Catholic Church — 9.1 mi
• Foster Army Air Field — 9.5 mi