HISTORY OF CALVERT

According to Texas Parks and Wildlife Magazine the path of the original Camino Real passes through Calvert, Texas. The Camino Real is the mother "highway" that carried travelers from Mexico to Louisiana long before concrete strips or railroad ties crisscrossed the state. 

The earliest known non-native settler in the area was Joseph Harlan, whose 1837 land grant laid five miles south of what is now the City of Calvert. In 1850, Robert Calvert, for whom the town was named, established a plantation west of the town. Calvert, who was a former Texas Representative and area farmer urged the Houston and Texas Central Railway to build through the area. The Houston and Texas Central Railroad agreed to stop in the town, at the encouragement of town leaders, in 1868.

In January 1868, a group of investors purchased land at the townsite and platted the community; by February of that year, merchants from the nearby communities including Sterling and Owensville were uprooting and moving to the community. A post office also opened in Calvert in 1868. The first trains arrived in Calvert in 1869, and the town was incorporated the next year with an aldermanic form of municipal government.

Although the Stroud family owned most of the land, the town was named for Robert Calvert because he was a driving force behind getting the railroad to stop in the town. The order of election for the incorporation of Calvert was issued July 5, 1869, but a majority actually voted against incorporation. This election was set aside because it was believed that "a fair expression of the qualified voters was not had," and a new election was held Saturday, July 24, 1869, a majority voted for incorporation, and the town was ordered incorporated on August 13, 1869.

After the railroad made Calvert the major trading center of the area, it was reported that:

It was a common sight to see six or eight wagons drawn by oxen slowly passing through the one and only street of these towns en route to Houston to dispose of their cotton. These wagons averaged ten miles a day. The team-masters usually owned their teams and were paid so much per hundred pounds for hauling freight.

In 1873 a severe yellow fever epidemic killed many in the community, severely depopulating the town. An early judge, in speaking about the epidemic, noted:

The disease was brought to town by a traveling printer from Louisiana where the fever was raging. He took a room over the restaurant in the Bailey building and died there. As many persons as could made an exodus before the town was quarantined. We lost between three and four hundred persons. The fever was a terrible epidemic, and our people suffered because we did not know how to treat the disease. The trains were not allowed to stop in Calvert then and the windows of the coaches were closed until they were far out of town.

 In 1878 Calvert was a thriving community with some fifty-two businesses. By 1884 Calvert had an estimated 3,000 inhabitants, with Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Episcopal, and Catholic churches, public schools, two banks, an opera house, and the weekly Courier. Around 1900 the community was a major cotton center, with a number of gins, cotton compresses, and cottonseed oil mills. 

In 1899 and 1901 destructive floods and a major fire damaged parts of the commercial district.

In the 1910s the local cotton economy declined, causing the booming population to shrink significantly. 

In the 1960s, Calvert was known as the "Antique Capital of Texas" due to the numerous antiques stores lined upon Main Street. 

In the 1970s, Calvert had the foresight to preserve the historic nature of the town's architecture and applied to form a National Historic District within the city. The Calvert Historic District is a historic district which comprises 70 acres roughly bounded by Main, Garritt, Pin Oak, Maple, and Barton streets. Contributing properties in the district consist of 82 buildings, one site and two other structures. On April 3, 1978, the district was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Calvert is currently experiencing a resurgence in the historic downtown business district, with the regular addition of food, drink, retail and other establishments. Additionally, a number of Victorian era homes have recently sold are are now being restored to their original beauty along with many others previously restored.

 ~ Courtesy of Wikipedia and other local sources