Name/Title
Katy, Texas [Cover]Description
A katydid cricket cachet cover made by Robert Beazell, postmarked in Katy, Texas on September 15, 1930, and mailed to the artist in Los Angeles, California.Context
Katy, first known as Cane Island, is on Interstate Highway 10 and U.S. Highway 90 at the intersection of Harris, Waller, and Fort Bend counties, twenty-five miles west of downtown Houston. The name Katy may have been taken from the name Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad or from the name of the saloonkeeper's wife. Before 1890 the depot was operated by the Hennesey family on the Texas Western Railroad, a mile south of the platted town site. Peter Black and the families of former slaves Tom Robinson and Milto McGinnis were also in the area. In 1894 the Pitts family moved north of town, and in 1895 M. A. Beckendorff, a surveyor for Waller County, moved to Pitts Road. The Missouri, Kansas and Texas had built through the site of Katy by the end of 1893, but no station was located there at that time. J. E. Cabaniss, the first railroad agent in Katy, took up his duties there in 1895. The depot was finished in 1898 and enlarged in 1919.
The Katy post office opened in 1896, with J. O. Thomas and W. P. Morrison, who owned grocery stores, as the first and second postmasters. William Eule introduced rice farming to the dry-land farmers in 1901, and rice replaced cotton, peanuts, and corn. The farming community supported several businesses: Dr. J. M. Stewart and John H. Wright came to Katy in 1898 and formed Stewart and Wright Drug Store in 1904; Wright built the first telephone lines and ran a water system; Adam Stockdick and J. H. Hayes were realtors; the Owens, Clardy, and Cobb families owned hotels; Charlie Mares had a saloon; Trangott Kellner ran a meat market; and Cabaniss operated a rice and peanut warehouse and lumberyard. In 1904 Katy had a reported population of 119. The following year it had two hotels, two livery stables, two lumberyards, and a saloon. The town gained a private bank in 1914. This cover was made before the discovery well of the Katy gas field was drilled in 1934.