Off The Beaten Path - Chandler, TX

[joe817]

CHANDLER, TEXAS. Chandler is twenty-five miles northeast of Athens in northeastern Henderson County. The area, originally inhabited by Caddo Indians, was settled in 1859 by Alphonso H. Chandler as a one-store town called Stillwater, two miles north of what is now the site of Chandler. A post office was established in April 1873 and was named after Chandler in 1880. Around that time he donated land to the Texas and St. Louis Railway, and a settlement, named for him, developed by the tracks.

By 1890 the town had a cotton gin, a mill, a school, and two churches. In 1910 the community incorporated. Chandler had two schools: one that in 1904 had two teachers and an enrollment of ninety-one white students, and another that in 1905 had one teacher and thirty-seven black students. By 1936 Chandler had 624 residents, three churches, two schools, and some twenty businesses, including the Times weekly newspaper, a canning factory, and a crate factory. By that time fruit farming had replaced cotton as the main source of income. The community's first mayor was elected in 1960, and in 1989 the town reported a population of 1,680 and forty businesses. In 1991 Chandler reported 1,678 residents and eighty-four businesses. In 2000 the population was 2,099.