De Leon Delicacies

Just south of Desdemona is another small town with a lot of history. De

Old produce store

Leon is actually named for its location on the Leon River. The climate in this area is listed as ‘humid subtropical’ and this is very true. And although this may make it uncomfortable for exploring, it’s a great place to raise crops, and to raise cattle.










Before the town of De Leon was actually established, there were folks living in the area who added to its history. Frances Marie Sparks, along

Brown house location

with her husband, Thomas Brown, moved to a 410-acre farm just outside De Leon in about 1876. Frances became the midwife and lay doctor for families in the area from the 1880s through the 1890s. She was known as Aunt Fanny, and she often rode a horse from six to eight miles to deliver babies no matter the time of day or the weather. Even though her husband died in 1912, Frances continued to manage her farm, raise her 12 children, and take care of many of her neighbors, bringing them back to health. One of her neighbors, blacksmith Cyrus Campbell, is said to be the person who made the leg irons used to restrain General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna after the Battle of San Jacinto.

Texas Central Railroad was busily building lines across Texas until the Civil War and the national economic depression of the early 1870s interrupted its progress. The work started again in the late 1870s and

Railroad station

early 1880s when the Texas Central Railway, then owned by the Houston & Texas Central Railway, entered a competition with the Texas Pacific to build a line through North Central Texas. The Texas Central reached the Erath-Comanche County line in 1880 and provided the reason that De Leon became a town. The town was platted in 1881 by surveying crews of as part of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas (Katy Railroad) railway. This line was part of the rail system from just north of the Waco area, to Stamford with the goal of finally linking the line with towns in Colorado. The De Leon city lots hit the auction block in July with Robert Morris Elgin, the Texas Central's land agent presiding. The first round of incorporation began in 1890, but the town government didn’t do much so De Leon was reincorporated nine years later with a mayor finally elected in 1900. The city population remained small until the Texas Central line was constructed from De Leon to Rising Star and Cross Plains, making De Leon the midpoint for the Katy line between Waco, Albany, and Cross Plains. The town began to grow, attracting new settlers from the Southeastern United States. Business increased with the construction of railroad offices, shops, and a roundhouse. De Leon became the primary shipping point for cotton and, for peanuts and other products until 1967. Local backers then purchased a part of the line to provide shipping service to customers along ‘The Peanut Line’ that connects Dublin, De Leon, and Gorman. It is currently operated by the Fort Worth and Western Railroad.

Ranching dominated Comanche County until about 1881 when immigrants acquired property and began farming. Cotton became the primary crop in 1890 and did well until 1910 when the boll weevil arrived.

De Leon Peanut Company buildings

At that time some farmers began experimenting with plantings of small Spanish peanuts. The weather and soil worked well with this legume and it quickly became the dominant crop. It took a while, but Comanche County became the leading peanut-producing area in the U.S. Shipping peanuts to Fort Worth for processing cut into profits so N. T. Haskins organized the De Leon Peanut Company in 1912. With peanuts firmly entrenched as the leading cash crop in the county, and the company enlarged its operations constructing a six-story main building. At its height, the plant was processing as many as ten railroad carloads of peanuts per day. The local community has been called ‘The Peanut Capital’ of the World. Most of the peanuts were purchased by Curtiss Candies for Baby Ruth and Butterfinger candy bars. Eventually Nabisco bought the De Leon Peanut Company, but peanut production has decreased and not much is happening with this endeavor. However, another industry supported the economy of De Leon, albeit, for a short time. In September of 1918, oil was discovered north of De Leon near Desdemona. Over the next two years, nearly a thousand wells were drilled driving the population of De Leon to more than 5,000 people. The boom didn’t last long and by the census time in 1920, the population was only 3,302. Since the end of World War II, De Leon's population has remained around 2,500.

Farming continues to be the mainstay of De Leon. The town has one of

Anthony Hotel

the oldest festivals in Texas, the De Leon Peach and Melon Festival, which began in about 1914. The festival still includes a carnival, tractor pulls, car show, free cold watermelon slicing, and probably most importantly the watermelon seed-spitting contest. Over the years celebrities have attended festivities in De Leon. These have included Elvis Presley, the Blackwood Brothers, 1955 Pulitzer Prize winner William White, former Texas Lieutenant Governor Ben Barnes, and several other politicos. The town’s motto remains ‘Busiest Town, Friendliest People’.

Interesting building

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