Martindale

Martindale is ten miles west of Lockhart in western Caldwell County. It was established in 1855 by Mrs. Nancy Martindale, who moved to Texas from Mississippi in 1851 and donated land for the townsite. A Baptist church was organized in 1858, and a post office was established in 1875, when the local population was less than fifty. In 1890 the town had four general stores and four gristmills and gins. By 1892 the population was 200. In 1905 Martindale had two schools with four teachers and 184 White students and one school with one teacher for seventy-two Black students. Four churches, a hotel, three cotton gins, three stores, a bank, and telephone service were in operation by 1914. Twenty Martindale businesses served residents in 1931. From 1910 to 1946 the population was 500. In 1949 cottonseed and hybrid seed corn companies near Martindale supplied over 65 percent of the hybrid seed corn and a large percentage of the pedigreed cottonseed produced in Texas. The population of Martindale reached a high of 600 in 1957 but subsequently fell to 250 in 1969 and 210 in 1982, when only three businesses were active. In 1982 the town became the third in the county to incorporate. Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church, built in 1916, was renovated by the parishioners' own labor in the mid-1980s and then was burned by an arsonist in 1991. After 1984 the local population increased, reaching 1,068 in 1988, when eleven businesses were in operation. Though the provision has recently been challenged, the town has remained dry by Mrs. Martindale's decree since its founding, and property belonging to anyone found gambling or selling alcohol may revert to the Martindale family. In 1990 the population was 904. The population grew to 953 in 2000.