Lolita Texas. (original) (raw)

	The family home on the Mitchell ranch, 1920 Photo courtesy Isaac Newton Mitchell V

History in a Pecan ShellPhilip Dimitt, one of the first Americans to enter Spanish Texas operated a horse-trading post two miles north of present day Lolita in 1830.

Development didn't get started until 1880 when the Mitchell Ranch was fenced with the first barbed wire used in Jackson County.

The town came into being in 1909 and was named after the granddaughter of Texas Revolution veteran Charles Keller Reese. The railroad installed a switch and the town got a post office that same year.

The community of Red Bluff separated its school district from that of Lolita's and most businesses in Red Bluff moved to Lolita.

Lolita had a population of 200 in the mid-1940s. 1969 saw 462 Lolitans. The population has stayed fairly constant at about 300 Lolitians from the late 1980s until the 2000 census of 548.

	The former Lolita High School Photo courtesy Lou Ann Herda, 2003

Lolita by Mike Cox ("Texas Tales" column)

During one of the hottest years of the Cold War, residents of a small Texas town made national headlines in taking umbrage over what looked to them like nothing less than a sinister Communist plot to besmirch the name of their fair community. more

	The Lolita water tower Photo courtesy Lou Ann Herda, 2003

Lolita, Texas Forum

• Lolita Founders, Mitchell Ranch and Mitchell School

My Great Uncle Chester Stockdale Mitchell surveyed and founded Lolita upon the land he owned. Charles Keller Reese was a very close friend of Uncle Stockdale.
Many of the early population were there because of the oil field drilling and related activity. A few also worked at the cotton gin which was later converted to a brick factory that also closed down. I recall bales of cotton on the platform of the train depot. Also there were livestock shipping pens at the depot.
My grandmother Mary Mitchell donated the land for the school. During the 1940s, I went to school in the two story tan brick building which was the original school building. When the high school building was built, a covered walkway was between the two main buildings. The original two story tan brick building was torn down sometime after 1950 when my family moved from our ranch which was immediately on the south side of town.
The photo was taken in approximately 1920. The main subjects are the family home on the I.N. Mitchell ranch and the swimming pool that was built a few years before this photo was taken. At the far left of the photo, you can see the blurred image of the two story tan brick building. It is by itself. There were no other school buildings then.
- Isaac Newton Mitchell V, November 2003

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