Oak Grove

Rosenthal was on U.S. Highway 77 four miles south of Robinson in southern McLennan County. The area was settled in the 1870s, and a school community called Oak Grove was established on Castleman Creek. By 1880 the main focus of settlement had shifted to the south. The new community is said to have been named in 1880, when a Waco store owner offered a family a free barrel of apples if they would name their town after him. A post office called Rosenthal was established in April 1888, with Alonzo W. Starrs as postmaster. By 1890 the community had two churches, a steam gristmill and cotton gin, a general store, and seventy-five residents; by 1896 the population had increased to 125. County school records from 1896 indicate that the Rosenthal district had eighty-one students and two teachers. The post office was discontinued in 1907, and mail for the community was sent to Lorena. By the 1930s the population of Rosenthal had fallen to fifty-five. A church, two businesses, and several residences marked the community on county highway maps in the 1940s. The Rosenthal school district was consolidated with the Lorena Independent School District in 1956; it reverted to its common school district status in 1965 and was consolidated with the Robinson Independent School District in 1968. Population estimates for the community remained at fifty-five through the early 1980s, but by the mid-1980s, the Rosenthal area had been incorporated into Robinson.