Violet [Cover]
Name/Title
Violet [Cover]Description
Index card with a violet flower in the top left corner. Postmarked "VIOLET / MAR 23 / 1942 / TEX."Context
Violet is on State Highway 44 twelve miles west of Corpus Christi in Nueces County. It came into being in the early 1900s, as immigrant farmers converted the fertile blacklands of the Coastal Bend from cattle to crops. In December 1906 Erwin Cushman and Louis Petrus acquired a 1,030-acre tract of land containing the site of Violet, then known as Land or Land Siding. Petrus subsequently acquired Cushman's interest and in early 1908 appointed John W. Hoelscher as agent to sell the tract for a commission of fifty cents an acre. Hoelscher decided to promote the area as a community of Catholic farmers of German descent. He advertised in several Texas German-language newspapers and secured the endorsement of the Most Rev. Peter Verdaguer, the vicar apostolic of Brownsville. Within a few months families began to settle this mesquite and brush country. In 1913 the community was renamed after Violet Fister, the wife of the first storekeeper, John Fister, and a post office was opened that remained in operation until 1947. The community had a population of 160 in 2000.Category
Discontinued Post Offices
The Handbook of Texas