Off The Beaten Path - China, TX

[joe817]

As the Texas and New Orleans Railroad built through Eastern Texas even as war clouds were darkening, in 1860 they came to a grove of Chinaberry trees and decided to put in a well to fill their locomotives. With few options for a name, someone suggest China Grove, the motion was seconded, and the rest is history.

By 1887 there were enough people here to request a post office and China Grove, Texas came into being. This facility was discontinued within a few months. They townsfolk were trying to sort out what had gone wrong - and by 1893 they figured the name had been too long. They reapplied as just plain China, Texas and Washington approved it.

Two men (Chas Nash and Howard Land) had been selling lots in a community called Nashland two miles east of China. Nashland had a larger population and its own post office (est 1900). When the China depot burned in 1906, Nashlanders sought to lure the railroad to their community. The move was competed, but the railroad insisted that the name remain the same. This left a depot with a conflictingly named post office. The conflict ended when the post office agreed to become China and Nashland became a local historical footnote.

China became a center for rice production and in the mid-1920s it supported an estimated 350 people. In the late 1930s, oil exploration discovered vast reserves.

The community got around to incorporation in the early 1970s and by the mid-1980s, it had acquired a population over 1,300. The 2000 census counted 1,112 residents who may (or may not) be considered "Chinese."

Courtesy of Texas Escapes.com

[ELB]

I was confused for awhile. China, nee China Grove, named for Chinaberry trees, formerly Nashland, is west of Houston, close to Beaumont, on Highway 90.

But China Grove is east of San Antonio, near Highway 90. I cannot yet find the origin of its name. It was memorialized by the Doobie Brothers in the song “China Grove”. I have driven through it a few times.

Also, the unincorporated China Grove, south of Houston near Rosharon, was named after chinaberry trees albeit indirectly, since it borrowed its name from the China Grove plantation, which directly took its name from Chinaberry trees. This plantation was owned by Albert Sidney Johnston, who is featured in Joe‘s other post today on “Fort Johnston”.

Now I have to look up to see what a Chinaberry tree is.