Geraldine

Geraldine, a community just south of the Wichita county line in Archer County, was part of a land-promotion scheme by Philander H. Fitzgerald of Indianapolis, Indiana. Fitzgerald, with several others, organized the American Tribune New Colony Company, which was chartered on March 14, 1901. Its purpose was to deal in real estate, especially in the southwest. Geraldine was planned as a city for 20,000. The town was advertised in the American Tribune, an Indianapolis newspaper owned by Fitzgerald. No population figures are available for Geraldine, but it was large enough for a newspaper and a post office. The town was opened on May 20, 1902, but by 1904 it was almost completely abandoned, though the post office was kept open until 1908. Because of income from oil, the school lasted until 1941, when it consolidated with schools in Holliday. Farmland was sold earlier than city lots, and 125 farm families had settled around the townsite. By 1902, however, all but twenty of these families were gone, as a three-year drought had made farming unprofitable.