MARTINDALE

A short history of Martindale

Martindale was established in 1855 by Nancy Martindale, who moved to Texas from Mississippi in 1851 and donated land for the townsite.

John Crayton, his son James Lasater Crayton and their slaves moved to the banks of the San Marcos River in what is now downtown Martindale in 1839. On January 8, 1852, John Crayton sold the land to George Martindale that Nancy Martindale later donated for the town of Martindale. John Crayton moved to the Republic of Texas from Marion County, Alabama but was born and married in Franklin County, Tennessee. He also donated the land for the Martindale City Cemetery. John Crayton lived in Martindale until his death in 1873.

Martindale Baptist church was organized in 1858, and a post office was established in 1875, when the local population was less than fifty. In 1890, the town had four general stores and four gristmills and gins. By 1892, the population was 200. In 1905, Martindale had two schools with four teachers and 184 white students and one school with one teacher for 73 black students. Four churches, a hotel, three cotton gins, three stores, a bank, and telephone service were in operation by 1914. Twenty Martindale businesses served residents in 1931.

From 1910 to 1946, the population was 500. In 1949, cottonseed and hybrid seed corn companies near Martindale, including the legendary Harper Seed Farm, supplied over 65 percent of the hybrid seed corn and a large percentage of the pedigreed cottonseed produced in Texas. The population of Martindale reached a high of 600 in 1957 but subsequently fell to 250 in 1969 and 210 in 1982, when only three businesses were active. In 1982, the town became the third in the county to incorporate. Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church, built in 1908, was renovated by the parishioners' own labor in the mid-1980s and then was burned by an arsonist in 1991. After 1984, the local population increased, reaching 1,068 in 1988, when eleven businesses were in operation.

In 2004, Carlton Carl, a Washington D.C. lobbyist, purchased 36,000 square feet (3,300 m2) of commercial property in downtown Martindale. A partial inventory of Carl's purchase includes three empty general stores, a former bank, a cottonseed weigh station, several warehouses, a movie-set courtroom, an aquarium filled with cotton plants, a seed elevator, 16 seed silos and 300 feet (91 m) of frontage on the San Marcos River. Carl has been working closely with the residents of Martindale to plan the next phase of the town's rejuvenation.

In Fall 2007, Carl worked with students at Texas State University of San Marcos in the Interior Design program, under the guidance of Assistant Professor and Program Coordinator Nancy Granato, to receive help envisioning further planning of the town. The project entailed assigning each group of students a specific building (i.e. silos, weigh station, etc.) to redesign the interior of and to think of a possible business that would work well with the space. One group worked on the landscape plan of the town in relation to planting native species of trees and plants, creating a city park, putting in new sidewalks and outdoor lighting. The ideas were then presented to Carl as well as some of the residents and leaders of the town. Students in the MBA program, under the guidance of Associate Professor Bob Hill, also presented Carl with a market analysis for the town of Martindale, TX. The presentation included an examination of the business district and potential economic opportunities; analysis of economic trends and activities to drive growth; and the identification new retail and restaurant opportunities.

Adapted (trimmed) from the Wikipedia article Martindale, Texas, revision 1374538875 by its contributors, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.