Calliham, Texas, McMullen County. (original) (raw)

History in a Pecan Shell

Originally, this seldom visited community was named after early storekeeper Hiram McGuffey and the town called itself Guffeyola.

Guffeyola was a tent city arrangement with very shallow roots. But when oil was discovered here (1922), a large influx of people showed up overnight. Local rancher and landowner Joseph Thomas Calliham was approached by a man named J. W. Stephenson who persuaded Calliham to think in terms of permanence through planning.

Stephenson arranged for the platting of a proper townsite, with Calliham getting a percentage of each lot sold.

A post office was granted in 1923 when it appears the town was thriving. The newly renamed Calliham, Texas had several groceries, four cafes, three two-story hotels, a druggist, newspaper and bakery. Amenities even included a rarely seen "dance pavilion"

The community received a brick schoolhouse in 1928 and the oil may have lessened the effects of The Great Depression. Calliham ended the hard times of the 1930s with a population of 400 - a respectable count for the region at that time.

Ten years later, and after WWII, Calliham's population was down to 300 residents served by five businesses. The high school closed in 1948 while the elementary school hung on until closing in 1963.

In the early 1970s, Calliham was down to just 121 people served by two businesses. In the late 1970s, twenty-two remaining families stuck it out, but even they needed to relocate when the original site was flooded by the construction of Choke Canyon Reservoir in the late 1980s.

According to the Handbook of Texas, the "new" Calliham was three miles south of the original plat. The population has increased to where the 2000 census enumerated 200 residents. The estimate in 2010 is 25.

Attraction: Choke Canyon State Park
P. O. Box 2 Calliham, TX 78007
http://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/choke-canyon