Jarrell, Texas. (original) (raw)

Commercial Row in 2004
TE Photo, September 2004

History in a Pecan Shell

The town was founded in 1909 by developers from Temple and Bartlett. O. D. Jarrell, the Temple developer lent his name to the town.

The location was on the former stageline from Georgetown to Gatesville and the proposed railroad (the Bartlett and Western Railway). The arrival of the railroad caused the death of Corn Hill - a town one mile east.

Jarrell's first businesses were reportedly a saloon and two stores. The town got its own newspaper in 1911 and a post office in 1912.

Jarrell reached its high-water mark in 1914 with a population of 500. The declining cotton industry and the Great Depression put Jarrell into an economic decline. The railroad failed in the 30s and as early as 1933 the population was already down to only 200.

Jarrell revived somewhat to an estimated 350 by 1945.

A devastating tornado hit the town in May, 1997, killing several people and destroying many homes.

Photo courtesy Nelda D. Crews

Jarrell, Texas Forum

• Subject: Tracing the Jarrell clan
  We have successfully traced the Jarrell clan to Virginia and the eastern seaboard, N. Carolina in particular. At some point during the Revolutionary War, the Jarrells, formerly Fitzgeralds, changed the spelling, dropping the "Fitz" altogether, and the current rendition of the last name came into being. The migration led to Georgia, (see Jarrell, Georgia a town founded by a Jarrell whose middle name was "Fitz" complete with renovated slave quarters and plantation home), Kentucky, from whom I am from in Prater Hill, Pike County, Kentucky. The Fitzgerald name, closely associated with the English and their southern invasion during that war, may have led to persecution by name association and thus the change and migration. I have little information to date on O.D. Jarrell but am still actively pursuing the Jarrell migration. - Len Jarrell, February 15, 2015
• Subject: Jarrell
  I am trying to do some genealogy research on my mother's side of the family. She grew up in Jarrell, her father was a blacksmith there, and many of her family are buried at Corn Hill cemetary. When I went to the site you have about Jarrell, it brought back many memories of time I spent in Jarrell as a child, but I was particularly interested in the picture showing the sidewalk with the names of the graduating seniors of 1929, as my aunt (Wynette Woodward) was one of the names displayed. - Donna Carter, November 13, 2005

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