National Register of Historic Places Eligibility Testing of Sites 41LT172 and 41LT354 in Luminant's Kosse Mine, Limestone, Texas Page: 14
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3. Previous Archeological Investigations and Cultural Context
south across the county, and the town of Thornton, situated approximately 10 miles west of Oletha,
was one of several towns established along the line. The slow and unimproved transportation lines
of the past had hampered economic growth, but the arrival of the railroad offered many new
opportunities and possibilities to local residents. Farmers whose yield increased dramatically
during the late nineteenth century shipped their goods to markets that had previously been
inaccessible or unprofitable. With their increased wealth, many of these farmers expanded their
purchase of goods from local stores, and merchants carried a greater variety of goods that had been
too expensive or difficult to obtain in the prerailroad era. The railroad also physically linked the
region to much of the rest of the nation, thereby helping to bring the area out of its isolated and
economically depressed state, and attracted new residents to the area. In Limestone County, the
population increased from 8,581 in 1870 to 16,246 by 1880 (Maschino 2011). Simultaneously,
existing communities bypassed by the railroad, such as Oletha and nearby Headsville, dwindled.
As in many other areas of Texas and the South, farm tenancy increased during the period from the
Reconstruction Era through the Great Depression. In many areas, particularly those heavily
dependent on slave labor, a large percentage of this increase could be attributed to landowners
leasing out lands to African American farmers. However, white farm tenancy also increased as
former landowners were unable to maintain ownership of their property when property values
declined. Additionally, Texas saw an increase in settlement in the 1870s from immigrants from the
Deep South, where the soils had been exhausted by physical destruction of the Civil War and the
depletion of farmland by decades of intensive agricultural cultivation.
Besides the general impetus provided by railroad construction, the county's newly freed African
American residents also participated in community development during the postbellum era. In
some cases, black residents settled in ethnic enclaves that in time developed into self-sustaining
communities with their own churches and schools. In some instances, these communities were
formed as a result of de facto segregation wherein African Americans were prohibited from settling
within the boundaries of Anglo-established communities. These communities were often in areas
that were considered undesirable by white residents and tended to be far-removed and isolated
from existing communities and railroad access. This pattern is apparent in the project vicinity,
where African Americans and Hispanics were prohibited from settling in the area surrounding the
Oletha community.
The arrival of the railroad also encouraged limited industrial development such as pottery making
and petroleum extraction during the early 1900s; however, agriculture, particularly cotton and
corn cultivation, continued to be the county's economic mainstay well into the twentieth century.
Local residents began to experiment with cotton cultivation in the 1880s. During the same period,
improvements were made in the process of refining cotton, such as Robert S. Munger's
development of a continuous ginning system in nearby Mexia (Britton 1992). Ray Walter reports in
his History of Limestone County that between 40 and 50 cotton gins were located in. the county atone time with nearby examples at Ferguson Prairie, Kosse, Mexia, and Groesbeck (Walter 1959). In
Private and Confidential
Atkins 100021558/110187 14
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Atkins North America, Inc. National Register of Historic Places Eligibility Testing of Sites 41LT172 and 41LT354 in Luminant's Kosse Mine, Limestone, Texas, report, February 2012; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth839205/m1/23/: accessed April 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.