Crowther

Crowther was on a county road off Farm Road 99 fourteen miles northeast of Tilden in northeastern McMullen County. It was named for Samuel Crowther, a transplanted Englishman who owned the townsite and who was the community's first postmaster. The town began between 1900 and 1902 as an ambitious real estate project conducted by the Boston and Texas Corporation. The developers, hoping to develop an agricultural center on their 1,600-acre townsite, cleared land and built a large reservoir and other irrigation projects. They offered farmland for $10 to $12 per acre and town lots for $10 to $100 and advertised in such northeastern states as Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania. Crowther was granted a post office in 1902 and grew moderately over the next ten years, partly thanks to land buyers from New England. By 1905 the community had a three-story hotel and before 1910 also had three stores, an ice plant, and a butcher shop. At its height the town had 300 residents and about fifty homes. After 1910, however, it declined rapidly, in spite of vigorous promotion by the developers. By 1920 all of the businesses in the town had closed, and it was soon afterwards deserted. In 1965 only one family lived on the site, but Crowther appeared on state highway maps as late as 1988.