Downtown Desdemona

We needed a break from the home front so we decided to take a short

Freeways

road trip. Part of our quest was to see if we could find the town in which my maternal grandmother was born. However in the process we were going to take a look at several historical sites (Texas was first a part of Spain’s holdings before 1821, then it belonged to Mexico until becoming the Republic of Texas in 1836; it agreed to join the United States in 1845). The next few blogs are going to cover our road trip, one town at a time.






Desdemona was one of the first Texas towns established west of the Brazos River in about 1857. At this time there were still attacks by the Comanche Indians to the settlers constructed a small fort on land owned

Location of Fort Blair CSA

by C.C. Blair. From 1861 to 1865 the fort housed several families and included 12 log cabins, picket walled spaces, and facilities for storing ammunition and supplies. Candles, soap, soda, food, clothing were made in the fort. Families educated their own children. It wasn’t until after the Civil War that William and Ben Funderburg developed a community they called Hogtown on Hog Creek. Around this time, Desdemona was established as a stop on the Old Waco-Ft. Griffin Road. By the 1870s Desdemona was a well-established frontier community. They even had a post office by 1877 but it was authorized under the name ‘Desdemona, named not for Shakespeare’s character, but for the daughter of an area justice of the peace.

In 1872, Rockdale Baptist Church was constructed. Organized by nine

Rockdale (Desdemona) Baptist Church

charter members, religious observances began with brush arbor meetings led by The Rev. Johnnie Northcutt. People from all around came by wagon, horseback, buggy, and on foot to listen to the sermons. Some time later monthly services were led by Johnny Carruth and Charlie Mitchell in a schoolhouse built near the Hog Creek site. The Rockdale Baptist Church congregation built their first sanctuary in Desdemona shortly after the establishment of the community's first post office. At the same time the church was renamed Desdemona First Baptist Church. Box suppers, baptisms, picnic services, and lengthy revivals soon became de rigueur for the congregation.

Of course once the community existed, there was a need for a cemetery. A one acre public graveyard was provided in 1880 by J. S. and Rosa Jones from their part of the D. W. Funderburgh land survey. Native rocks

Cemetery Art

incised with initials or dates mark some early graves, but the earliest marked grave is that of William E. Wright (1815 - 1878). It is likely that older unmarked burials exist among the oak trees. Those buried here include pioneer settlers and their descendants; veterans of the Civil War, World War I and World War II, Korea, Vietnam; and many young children. In the 1900s oil discoveries were made near the cemetery. It wasn’t until 1965 that the H. H. Williams' estate donated two more acres of land for the Desdemona Cemetery. This cemetery is still active and is quite a pretty place.

Agriculture was important in Desdemona, particularly peanuts until the early 1900s. J.W. ‘Shorty’ Carruth began selling stock in his Carruth Oil Company though he misrepresented the actual value his ‘strike’.

Desdemona Post Office

However, Tom Dees, director of the Hog Creek Oil Company, actually did strike oil on land owned by Joe Duke, and Desdemona became a boomtown. Perhaps as many as sixteen thousand people arrived in Desdemona between 1919 and 1922 including a less than savory element. A call went out to the Texas Rangers for help to end lawlessness. Prostitution prospered at the Lone Star Hotel on Main Street, along with at least four gambling parlors. To control lawlessness, Desdemona residents formed the ‘Law and Order League’. Although it took a few years, in 1923 a federal grand jury indicted Carruth for using the mail to defraud investors of some $7 million; he pled guilty and was sentenced to a year in Leavenworth. Although the Desdemona oil field was the second largest in the oil belt, and stockholders of the Hog Creek Oil Company became wealthy, Desdemona had sanitation problems when persistent rains flooded the streets and overflowed the petroleum pools. Influenza and typhoid fever reached epidemic proportions, resulting in many more tombstones in the cemetery. J. A. Kidd, one of the more vocal of the townspeople who rallied against the lawless element was pastor of the Rockdale Baptist Church when fire destroyed it. This brought the Texas Rangers back to town; they arrested 125 men, and expelled nearly the same number of prostitutes. The congregation built a new sanctuary in 1921-22 on land donated by C.H. and Fannie Genoway. The church remains on at this site and continues to serve the local community.

As fast as the boom arrived, so did the bust. Oil production dropped from more than seven million barrels in 1919 to less than three million in 1921. A fire, in 1921, destroyed an entire block in downtown Desdemona,

Old First National Bank

including the Lone Star Hotel. With the decrease in population, Desdemona public school (grades 1-12) built in 1922 and expanded as a Works Progress Administration project in 1937, closed in 1969 because of lack of enrollment. And in fact, in 1936 Desdemona had dissolved its municipal government leaving the general area to be governed by Eastland County. Ninety wells were still producing oil or natural gas in the Desdemona field, and a Mobil plant was producing butane in 1976. In 1980 and again in 2000, the Desdemona population was reported as 180; as of 2013 three businesses remained in the town.

Desdemona Cemetery Shadow

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