Eagle Lake Headlight
Saturday, June 24, 1905

LOOKING BACKWARD
Eagle Lake in the 1870’s

Contributing Writer
Sidney Elmer Struss

“Borne on the stream of time,
Sweet thoughts of former days
Come thronging with harmonious
         chime.”

 When I moved back from the big city life a year ago, many friends and I talked about how up and coming Eagle Lake was versus the sometimes empty streets seen today. We would reminiscent about the “good ole days!”  One hundred years ago, the locals in Eagle Lake thought the same way and were reflecting on olden times by the following article found in the June 4, 1905 Eagle Lake Headlight:

Retrospection is among the 20^th century fads.  The Texas newspapers are running columns from files twenty, thirty and even fifty years ago. Old settlers are publishing reminiscences of early days recalling from the dim past former scenes ere they fade from memory.  Following their example, I send to the Headlight some recollections of Eagle Lake, Texas life as it was in the early 1870’s. Thirty-five years ago, I came from Houston to spend the summer with Mrs. Scott Anderson who lived very near the waters of the lake.  The house was afterward moved to town and occupied the site on which the Episcopal Church now stands.

A View of a Part of Eagle Lake Where Mrs. Scott Anderson
Lived in the Early 1870s

She was a woman of great beauty, reared in affluence which was swept away by the result of the war, of charming manners, cultured and intelligent and in the ‘50’s was a reigning belle from Austin to the coast. 

I can remember several families that lived in the area; the Stricklins, Joe Schiller, Dr. Bruce, Mrs. Lee Ayars, Captain McCarty, D.W. Stockbridge and his brother-in-law, Mr. Smithson.

Dr. Bruce was a handsome widower who had a little daughter Annie (Mrs. Mansfield) who lived with his mother-in-law, Mrs. Rivers.

The present Mrs. Bruce was in Virginia at school.  The Frazars, Herberts, Lotts, Thatchers, Montgomerys, Matthews, Harberts and Battles lived on their plantations.

There were three stores, Beard & McCarty’s was in the middle of the square, Joe Schiller’s in the building now owned by Mrs. Dallas located at the corner of McCarty Avenue and Railroad Street, and Stockbridge’s, where the old bakery was.

Beard & McCarty's Store, One of the First Stores in Downtown Eagle Lake, Shown by a Chimney Just Behind the Windmill (to the left) on the Downtown Square in About 1872

The dwellings were box houses and one or two of them of logs.  There was no regular preaching.  Occasionally a traveling preacher would have service in an old room about where Tatters’ tin ship now is.  The Good Hotel was the most imposing building in the town.  Before the extension of the railroad, it was the stage stand and Mr. Good, first husband of Mrs. Clower, was the stage driver.  It was the only stopping place for the public between Alleyton and Richmond.  Captain Dunovant, my husband and I were fellow boarders there in 1871. Forty years ago the Goods, owned about all the land Eagle Lake is now built on.  The dances were held in the upper story of a building owned by Colonel McCarty where the Nussbaum store now is.  Young people came from Columbus and from the country round about and Professor Wash Bowers, a really good fiddler, was the orchestra.

In the Early 1880s,  a View of the South Side of the Downtown Square Can See Several Stores , One Being a Saloon and the Other a Drug Store, Lacymann & Schultze

During the summer I visited Co9lumbus, the guest of Mrs. Fannie Darden. In those days it took just what it takes now to make a girl’s good time and she had the room full of beaux the first night of my arrival.  There were Editor Ben Baker, Judge McCormick, Judge Wells Thompson and others I do not remember.  In those days the more young men callers a girl could entertain at once, the greater her social triumph.  In these days (in Eagle Lake, Texas) when a young man wants to call on a girl he makes what is called “a date” and while that “date” is on no other young man is expected to be within sight or hearing.

A year later I came, a bride, to live in Eagle Lake. During the year Mr. Stockbridge had remodeled his house and was the owner of the first carpet in town. I use to hear it spoken of as the “carpeted room.” We bought three acres from the Goods at $15 per acre and established our home for the rest of our lives.  I remember a party at Mr. Jim Harbert’s farm about thirty-three years ago (1872). There was an elaborate and elegant supper, not one of these latter day affairs where delicious fruit punch is expected to satisfy all gastronomic desire, but ham, turkey, chicken, salads, custards, cakes, and no good thing left out.

The night was dark and rainy and we danced till daylight. About three o’clock we were again invited into the dining room and found a second spread as fine as the first.  We used to have the times down at Mrs. Frazar’s. Suppers, weddings, dances were frequent. I remember an amateur theatrical performance there, in which a young man named Habermacher was a brilliant star.  He now edits the Shiner Gazette. Of the adult population of Eagle Lake in 1870 there remains today, Dr. Bruce, E. P. Newsom and wife (then a girl of fifteen) and myself.

Some of those that are gone, the old familiar faces, were Alsie Thomas, Alsie McGee and Uncle Hamp.                                           --- "M"