Winkler

The Handbook of Texas dates Winkler to about 1879 and records what the 1882 state directory found: seventy-five people, three general stores, a gin and two steam gristmills. The town reached 150 residents by 1925, but a 1949 recount showed only thirty. A school with one teacher enrolled thirty-six pupils in 1906. The Handbook says the first post office was discontinued after 1930, while the plaque says mail service continued until 1973. The Handbook's 1968 count was twenty-six residents and a single business, and the figure held through 2000.

What the plaque says

Winkler Settlers began arriving in this area in 1846, and by the 1860 several farms were in operation. Settlement increased after the Civil War, and the town of Winkler was organized in 1879. Due to its location, the community was a part of both Navarro and Freestone counties. With W. S. Grayson as postmaster, a post office was established on April 28, 1879, on the Freestone County side and named in honor of Clinton McKamy Winkler (1820-1882), Confederate veteran, county judge, and state legislator. Within a year, the town boasted several homes and businesses. The advent of the railroad to the area caused many population shifts, including one away from Winkler to the new town of Streetman in 1905. Winkler continued to exist with a small population, however, and the post office continued in operation until 1973. The Winkler County Line Common School District was created in 1896. Classes were held in homes until 1898, when D. T. B. Grayson donated land on which a combination Masonic Lodge/school/church was built. Winkler Baptist Church was organized January 16, 1898, with C. C. Lee as first pastor. Prior to 1940, businesses in Winkler included grocery and mercantile stores, blacksmith shops, and gins. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Blind Lemon Memorial Cemetery — 17 mi
  The Freestone County grave of the Texas blues singer Blind Lemon Jefferson, who recorded for Paramount in Chicago from 1926 and died there in December 1929.
• Petroleum Industry Park — 18 mi
  The pipes and drilling tower mark where a city water well struck oil on June 9, 1894, the start of the first Texas field to produce oil and gas in important quantities.
• Confederate Reunion Grounds State Historic Site — 29 mi
  Where Limestone County Confederate veterans gathered each summer from 1888, later a water supplier in the Mexia oil boom, now a Texas Historical Commission site on the Navasota River.

More markers nearby

• Birdston Community and Cemetery — 5.6 mi
• Birdston Valley — 6.2 mi
• Eureka Cemetery — 6.3 mi
• Home of Whitney Montgomery, Poet — 6.8 mi