Bishop's First Families - Dan W. Taylor Family

May 14 - 16, 2010

[The following is first in a series from the Bishop News of 1960 written by Mrs. Gail Tubbs for

Bishop's then upcoming Golden Jubilee celebration.]

~~Dan W. Taylor Family~~

Bishop, Nueces County, Texas 1910 - 2010 One Hundred Years of South Texas Heritage!

Sections of water pipe and ridges of cloddy black dirt littered the new streets, stacks of

pine lumber shown white around the bare framework of what was to be the Bishop

Hotel, one small house stood to the west of this and bright electric lights shown from a

little frame commissary, the only other building in the settlement.

That was the town of Bishop which the Dan W. Taylor family, the first permanent

residents, found when they climbed off the early morning train on June 19, 1910.

Mr. Taylor, who was to head F. Z. Bishop's land sales force, and son Eldridge, had come

on ahead of the rest of the family. Mrs. Taylor and four little girls, Sue, Aline, Betty and

baby Dannetta, had a bit of trouble getting tickets to Bishop - the agent couldn't find it

on the map.

"It is down there in Nueces County, my husband said so," curly-haired little Mrs. Taylor

insisted. Her tickets read "Bishop," but the conductor declared he had no stop at such a

place. He could take the family on to Kingsville, there was a town there.

But the Taylors had set out for Bishop, whether on the map or not, and the conductor stopped his train and let them off at the

construction camp where Mrs. Taylor insisted the town should be.

"We climbed over the dirt and pipe to the commissary," Sue, who is now Mrs. Ernest miller, tells. "Charlie Jones and Tom

Moudy served us a grand breakfast, fresh cantaloupe, pancakes and bacon".

After breakfast they went over to their new home, the first house built in Bishop, a five-room brown bungalow facing on Fifth

Street. Built on a lot which is now the east part of the Humble Service Station property, this house was moved a number of

years ago and now stands at 403 E. Sixth St. and is occupied by the Gus Schraders.

Construction moved fast that first summer, Mrs. Miller says. Sidewalks were started, street lights went up along Fifth Street.

The name BISHOP was spelled out in electric light on the water tower before the town officially had that name. Work was

rushed on the big hotel, and the workmen lived in tents across the street.

Charlie Jones drove his light dray wagon, with spring seat and tarpaulin cover, back and forth to Kingsville for supplies and

to bring over the mail once a week.

A big steam plow broke the first acres of land for Mr. Bishop's experimental garden in what is now the Brown Addition, and

an artesian well was drilled there. Next, a small acreage northwest of the rainroad was plowed, and by early winter, steam

plows were sending up black smoke both east and west of town as they turned the prairie pasture into farm land.

Mr. Bishop and Mr. Taylor were busy bringing in home seekers from Central Texas and other points. Often they would come

over from Corpus Christi with cars full of men, stop

by the Taylor house and leave a load of groceries

and go off to look over the land. Mrs. Taylor would

cook up a meal for the visitors, and it was Sue and

Aline's job to wash the stacks of dished -- they were

the happiest girls in Texas when the Hotel was

completed and took over the hospitality end of the

land sales game.

And land sales went well. Almost every morning

emigrant cars loaded with household goods, farm

equipment and livestock were shuttled onto the

railroad siding. By September, there were enough

children in town to start a school. Mr. Bishop built a

one-room school building and employed Miss Molly

Moore as teacher that first term.

Mr. Taylor organized a Sunday School, held in the

school house, and served as Sunday School superintendent. Brother Bennie Goodwin, a Baptist preacher and part time

carpenter and farmer, preached the first sermons in Bishop in the little school building. The Taylors were members of the

Christian Church, other new residents belonged to the Church of Christ, so the two groups joined together for a time in the

first church organization in Bishop.

For recreation, Mr. Bishop turned a 40-acre tract along Carreta Creek into a City Park with lake, swimming pool, bathhouse,

band stand, trees and shrubs, and a big deer enclosure that proved to be a train-stopper for the home seeker excursions en

route to the Rio Grande Valley. Mrs. Miller recalls all kinds of good times in that park, and on one of Bishop's big birthday

celebrations, she won a canoe race dressed in an Indian costume her mother had contrived.

About this time a larger house was built for the Taylors west of the railroad (now owned by R. E. Michalk). The Taylors later

lived in a two-story house off the angle road, and in 1915 were in a house on the west side when the Fourth of July Flood

forced them to take refuge in the second story. People around them used cotton bales for rafts to get out of the high water.

When Mr. Bishop ceased operations here in 1916, Mr. Taylor handled land sales in other parts of Texas and was in the real

estate business in Corpus Christi until his death a few years ago.

The Millers returned to Bishop in 1924, and Mrs. Miller is the only member of the family who has continued to live here.