Neinda Community
Hamlin, Jones County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Soon after Jones County organized in 1881, ranchers settled west of Skinout Mountain and established a community called Banner. In 1890, a post office named Neinda opened, with John O'Brien as postmaster. A cemetery began the following year. The Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railway bypassed the town in 1902 (creating Hamlin 6 mi. NW), and the post office closed in 1907. At its peak in the 1920s, the community had a school, Methodist and Baptist churches, a cotton gin, a doctor's office, pharmacies, stores and a filling station. By the early 21st century, only the cemetery (1891), Neinda Baptist Church building (1905) and Brown's Cash Store Building (1927) remained in the once viable town. (2007)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
After Jones County organized in 1881, ranchers settled west of Skinout Mountain and built a community first called Banner, renamed Neinda when its post office opened in 1890. A cemetery followed in 1891, but the town's fate was sealed in 1902 when the Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railway bypassed it to create nearby Hamlin. Though Neinda peaked in the 1920s with a school, churches, a cotton gin, and stores, little survived into the twenty-first century beyond its cemetery, a 1905 church, and a 1927 store building.
Why it matters
Neinda's rise and decline captures how a railroad's route could make or unmake a West Texas town almost overnight.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · John O'Brien
Related events
- · Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railway bypass (1902)
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Nolan County
Sweetwater, TX
Long crossed by nomadic Indians, this region drew Anglo-American buffalo hunters and cattlemen in the 1870s, and Nolan County was created in 1876—named for Irish-born adventurer Philip Nolan, killed by Spanish soldiers while capturing wild horses in 1801. The town of Sweetwater grew from a general store into the county seat, then shifted two miles to meet the Texas & Pacific rail line in 1881. Additional railroads soon made it a regional hub, its economy built on ranching, cotton, and mineral production.
Texas & Pacific Railway
Sweetwater, TX
When the Texas and Pacific Railway pushed west across the state in the early 1880s, it remade the map of West Texas one whistle-stop at a time. Sweetwater got its first train on March 12, 1881, and grew up along the tracks as a genuine railroad town—homes, stores, and shipping pens clustering where the line ran. For nearly a century the depot moved settlers in and cattle and crops out, until passenger service ended and the station came down in 1969.
Sweetwater Cemetery
Sweetwater, TX
The oldest marked grave here belongs to an infant, Purl Ray Scott, who died in 1880—a year before the Texas and Pacific Railroad founded the town of Sweetwater. Handcrafted tombstones and wrought-iron fences mark the resting places of pioneers, immigrants, community leaders, and Civil War veterans. The graveyard reflects the hardships of pioneer life on the West Texas plains.
Josselet Switch
Haskell, TX
Belgian immigrant Victor Josselet joined his brothers in coming to America in 1873, working as Chicago coal miners before farming in Texas, and in 1900 bought a large tract near Haskell to ranch and raise a family of nine. When the Wichita Valley Railroad reached Haskell in 1906, Josselet sold the line a strip for a siding, and "Josselet Switch" became an important cattle-shipping point to the Fort Worth and Kansas City stockyards. The switch gained a depot, store, and fuel station, and much of the original land is still worked by his descendants.