Winters

The Handbook of Texas says a cowboy, Jack Mackey, suggested the town's name, and that the post office opened in 1891 with Frederick Platte as postmaster. Winters had 163 people in 1892. W. D. Currier's Winters Recorder began in 1903 and became the Winters Enterprise in 1905, and the town incorporated in 1909. A public library was built in 1964, and later industries made air conditioning equipment, metals, lenses, lighted signs and aircraft parts. Winters had 1,247 people in 1910, 3,061 in 1980 and 2,880, with 140 businesses, in 2000.

What the plaque says

WINTERS From its beginning as a west central Texas frontier community winters grew from a retail support center for the surrounding agricultural community to a small-town railroad link to an oil, gas and manufacturing center. Settlement of the area of Winters began in the 1880s when two families, the Currys and the Bells, staked claim to the land one mile southeast of the present-day town. In 1889, a small schoolhouse was built on land that was given by land agent J.N. Winters. The community met in the completed schoolhouse to vote on the town name and Winters won. Winters already had significant cattle and feed production, and cotton added to their growing economy. By the first decade of the 20th century, winters was typical of small settlement communities on the west central Texas prairie. In 1907, residents lobbied to construct a railroad between Abilene and Ballinger. By 1909, the railway reached Winters. This railway, along with the rise of blacktop roads and the automobile, ushered in an era of prosperity and expansion for Winters. In 1949, Winters benefited in particular from the findings of the Cree-Sykes Oil Field and Fort Chadbourn Oil Field. Oil and gas extraction continues to contribute to the local economy. Another Winters industry was the C.L. Green Milling and Grain Co. established in 1918, the business handled all types of feeds for customers. Unlike other railroad towns, the city of Winters was never laid out on a planned grid, but instead grew in response to the importance of agriculture, petroleum exploration, manufacturing and transportation. After 125 years, the community is still progressing and is economically viable. (2014)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Z. I. Hale Museum and Rock Hotel — steps away
  A free museum in a Winters optometrist's office, a 1909 railroad hotel and a 1927 implement dealership, with Rogers Hornsby's hometown memorabilia and a 1912 horse-drawn cotton picker.
• Carnegie Library of Ballinger — 15 mi
  A 1909 limestone library with an Ionic portico in a railroad town the Santa Fe created in 1886, one of the few Texas Carnegie libraries still working in its original building.
• Fort Chadbourne — 18 mi
  An 1852 infantry post and Butterfield stage station on a Coke County ranch, its fallen stone buildings rebuilt since 1999 by the descendant of the family that has ranched the land since 1877.
• Abilene State Park — 20 mi
  A pecan-shaded park on Elm Creek in the Callahan Divide south of Abilene, with red sandstone CCC buildings, a summer pool, a bird blind and yurts under the trees.

More markers nearby

• Pumphrey — 7.1 mi
• Site of Old Communities of Mazeland and Wilmeth — 9.3 mi
• Site of the Town of Runnels — 11 mi
• Crews — 11 mi