Town of Flowella
Falfurrias, Brooks County, Texas
Marker Inscription
On 1831 "Loma Blanca" Grant and 1873 land of Perez Family, who in 1898 sold "Parrita" (Little Grape Vine) to Mrs. King of King Ranch. Flowella was founded 1909 by E.O. Burton and A.H. Danforth as trade town for a projected farm colony, and named for a flowing well in middle of townsite. The Calahan Family opened hotel in 1909, store and post office, 1910. School building, also erected in 1910, provided a social-cultural center for some 100 residents. In adverse seasons, closings began: the store, 1911; hotel, 1915; post office, 1923; school, 1928. None of the original buildings remain.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Founded in 1909 on old Spanish grant and later King Ranch land, Flowella was laid out as the trade center for a planned farm colony and named for a flowing well at its heart. A hotel, store, post office, and school briefly served about a hundred residents. But hard seasons closed the businesses one by one, and by the late 1920s the town had faded, leaving none of its original buildings.
Why it matters
Flowella's brief rise and fall captures the boom-and-bust hopes of the South Texas land-colony era.
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Related people
- · E. O. Burton
- · A. H. Danforth
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Site of Los Olmos
Falfurrias, TX
Los Olmos was the first permanent settlement in what became Brooks County, planted at the southwest corner of the El Paisano land grant given to Ramon de la Garza by the Mexican state of Tamaulipas around 1830. Sitting near the main road to the Rio Grande, it drew ranching families from northern Mexico and by 1880 had a post office, stores, and a school. As the nearby town of Falfurrias rose, Los Olmos faded—though descendants of its founders still live in the area.
Brooks County
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Brooks County was pieced together from Hidalgo, Starr, and Zapata counties and created in March 1911, organizing later that year with Falfurrias as its seat. It honors James Abijah Brooks, a captain of the Texas Rangers for nearly a quarter century who also served in the legislature and, from the county's founding, as its county judge.
Chamberlain Cemetery
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At the turn of the 20th century, King Ranch owner Henrietta King and neighboring ranchers backed the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway to move cattle to market, and the new railroad town of Kingsville rose around its headquarters. In 1908 a cemetery association bought forty acres and opened Chamberlain Cemetery the next year, naming it for Henrietta's father, pioneer minister Hiram Chamberlain. It became the resting place of Henrietta and Captain King, railroad visionary Uriah Lott, and other builders of South Texas.
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