Lattington

Skidmore is on State Highway 181 and a Southern Pacific line in the central southern half of Bee County. Samuel Cyle Skidmore, a Virginia native and cousin of Gen. Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson, moved to Texas in 1857 and eventually settled on Aransas Creek. In 1860 a post office named River Side, for its location by the stream, opened there briefly. Then from later in 1860 to 1866 a post office called Lattington, after its first postmaster P. Lattington, operated at the site. The town of Skidmore was founded when Samuel's son Frank O. Skidmore, real estate dealer and cattleman, donated the townsite, right-of-way, and alternate blocks of land to the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway in 1886. The next year a post office called Skidmore opened there. With the coming of the railroad the town gained its first doctor, F. B. Seymour, and its first newspaper editor and innkeeper, T. B. Atkins. The first Methodist United Sunday School in Bee County was established by John Galloway, a Scottish immigrant who worked on the Skidmore ranch. In 1893 Skidmore was moved to its present site south of Aransas Creek. By 1914 the town's population was reported as 1,000. Skidmore in 1920 had a bakery, two pharmacies, three garages, three saloons, and eight stores. Three large fires, in 1913, 1918, and 1929, and the declining importance of the railroad dampened Skidmore's growth in the first third of the 1900s. Around 1950 Skidmore had three schools, four churches, and a population of 925. In the late 1980s it had four rated businesses, a railway depot, a post office, and a population of 500. During the early 1990s it continued to report a population of 500, as well as twenty-four rated businesses and the post office. The population doubled in 2000 reaching 1,013 and had thirty-four rated businesses.

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Laura Caldwell | © TSHA

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Adapted from the official Handbook of Texas, a state encyclopedia developed by Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). It is an authoritative source of trusted historical records.

Belongs to

Lattington is part of or belongs to the following places:

Currently Exists

No

Place type

Lattington is classified as a Town

Associated Names

  • (Skidmore)

Has Post Office

No

Is Incorporated

No