Taiton

Taiton, also known as Tait, is on State Highway 71 eighteen miles northwest of Wharton in northwestern Wharton County. It was first settled in 1886 and named Tait, probably for Charles William Tait of Colorado County, a prominent surgeon and member of the Texas legislature. In 1894 German and Czech immigrants arriving in the El Campo area in search of farmland settled in the community. When a post office was established in 1896, the town name was changed to Taiton. An early schoolhouse was replaced in 1901, when Ignace Jurasek donated land for a new school. B. E. Medina opened a general store, and a dance pavilion was operating by 1903. In 1905 the local school had seventy-five pupils and one teacher. Area farmers raised cotton, rice, corn, watermelons, and cattle. An increasing number of rice farmers and continued immigration brought the population to 800 by 1910, when the town had a dry-goods store, several groceries, and a produce buyer. A Catholic church was built in 1911, but Taiton declined after 1915. In 1926 the local school had two teachers and served 104 White and four Black pupils from the area, but the community itself reported only twenty residents. Its post office was discontinued in the 1930s. In the 1940s the Rancho Grande school consolidated with that of Taiton, and the school and store were moved to their current location. In 1947 Taiton had the school, a church, two stores, and eighty residents. During the 1960s Taiton served an area of thirty-five square miles with a population of 325, though the community itself reported only twenty-four residents from 1968 through 2000.