Historical Marker
Six Mile-Royal Community
Port Lavaca, Calhoun County · Texas
Erected 1998
The settlement stood on land first granted to Valentine Garcia. Among its early families were the Sees, Lishkas, Coufals, Machaceks, Hoppes, Webbs and Dedmons as well as the Mareks. The first schoolhouse doubled as a church, and in 1904 one teacher taught fifty-four students; in 1935-36 three teachers taught ninety. By 1940 local farmers had dug a system of drainage canals. By 1955 the school had been folded into the county system and students rode buses to Port Lavaca, and by 1985 the Calhoun County Airport lay a mile to the southwest.
What the plaque says
Six Mile-Royal Community The Phillips Investment Company issued deeds to the property on this site to Josef Marek and John Drgac in December 1894. The area, soon called Marekville, attracted Czech and German settlers with a bumper cotton crop in its first year. The first school building was erected in 1895; a post office opened in 1905, taking the name Royal after the county commissioner. The Six-Mile name is believed to come from a local watering hole; from Port Lavaca, it was "six miles to water." This name was used formally as early as 1907 by the Six Mile Farmers Union. The post office closed in 1910, but the area continued to grow. In 1997, about 200 families still resided in the area. (1998)
Where it stands
28.67724, -96.67868 · Directions
More markers nearby
- Six Mile Cemetery — 0.5 mi
- Six Mile Presbyterian Church — 0.5 mi
- Don Martin De Leon — 1.5 mi
- Lavaca Lodge No. 36, A.F. & A.M. — 2.6 mi