Name: Boling, Texas
Address: Boling, TX

Wharton, TX RoadyGoat

Wharton, Texas, sits nestled in the bottomland hardwood forests, where the Colorado River meanders through the county. It's a place where the whisper of rice fields rustling in the wind blends with the occasional bellow of an American alligator sunning itself on the riverbank. Named for brothers William and John Wharton, who helped shape early Texas, the town carries a quiet charm that belies its brushes with both fame and infamy.

9.4 mi away

Wharton, TX RoadyGoat

Wharton, Texas, carries a quiet charm, but its history is anything but silent. Long before William and John Wharton gave their name to the town in 1846, the Karankawa people knew this land, navigating the bottomland hardwood forests and the winding Colorado River. The river itself has been a constant, shaping the landscape and the lives of those who settled here, bringing both life-giving water and the threat of floods. Agriculture took root early, and even today, the rice fields are a testament to the area's enduring connection to the land. You can still see alligators sunning themselves on the banks of the waterways, a reminder of the wildness that persists alongside the cultivated fields. The town has seen its share of excitement, too. Legend says Bonnie and Clyde themselves paid a visit to the First State Bank, adding a dash of outlaw notoriety to the local lore. And while Wharton might feel a world away from big-city lights, it's close enough to Houston that the Astros' 2022 World Series win surely brought cheers here as well. Wharton is a place where small-town tranquility meets a surprisingly rich past, a blend of agriculture, wild nature, and whispers of both everyday life and extraordinary events.

9.4 mi away

Wharton, TX RoadyGoat

Wharton, Texas, isn't just another dot on the map. The Colorado River is the reason it's here at all. Fertile bottomland, perfect for rice cultivation, spreads out on either side of the water. Before the Whartons even arrived and gave the town their name, the Karankawa knew this land, knew the river's moods. It's a place where the quiet rustle of rice stalks in the wind mixes with the deeper secrets of the bottomland hardwood forests, where American alligators sun themselves on the banks. That agricultural heart, combined with its location, has shaped everything. It's close enough to Houston to feel the pull of the big city – the Astros' World Series win was cause for celebration here, too – but far enough away to maintain its own rhythm. But if you ask a local why people *stay* in Wharton, they'll tell you it's about something deeper. It's the sense of community, the connection to the land, and the quiet pride in a place that has endured, quietly and steadily, for generations.

9.4 mi away

Boling Dome

1925

Boling Dome, an underground rock structure that contains petroleum, sulfur, and salt, is on the western bank of the San Bernard River almost entirely in Wharton County (at 29°18' N, 95°56'W). It is oval in shape and ranges five miles east-west and three miles north-south, encompassing 5,500 acres. The Boling Dome caprock mantle of minerals is shallow, 383 feet below the surface. Another 120 feet through caprock, at the center of Boling Dome, is the salt dome itself, about 500 feet below the surface. Its outer edge requires up to 5,000 feet of drilling before reaching salt. The entire Boling Dome area is seventy-five feet above sea level. Salt domes in Texas have been of particular geologic significance because of their mineral production. Most of them are located on the Gulf Coast between the lower Colorado and Neches rivers. They have also been used for product storage and disposal. Sulfur production at the Boling Dome is from the crest of the caprock to deep down the southeast flank of the cap. The first well went into production in March 1929, using the Frasch method for removal (pumping steam into the ground to melt the sulfur, then pumping the liquid sulfur out). The sulfur reserve covers more than 1,500 acres. This reserve, owned by Texasgulf , Incorporated, once produced more sulfur than any other sulfur mine in the world. By the time the mine closed in 1993, 80.8 million long tons of sulfur had been removed. The first oil well at the dome went into production in December 1925. As of 1989 the Boling field had produced 6,246 million cubic feet of natural gas and 25,635,836 barrels of oil. Over 8,000 wells had been drilled to mine the sulfur reserve, and 12,000 wells for oil and gas. In addition, at the Boling Dome, Valero, Incorporated, operates three gas-storage caverns in the salt stock, with a combined volume of 7.5 million barrels. Spacing between the boreholes for sulfur wells is about 100 feet; the sulfur holes, with the 12,000 additional injection wells for oil and gas, produce a highly porous zone that affects the integrity of the dome. On August 12, 1983, a sinkhole approximately 250 feet in diameter and twenty-five feet deep, formed suddenly over the crest of the Boling Dome on Farm Road 442 three miles north of Boling, collapsing the roadway. Water filled the ditch. In early drilling records such as those that the Gulf Production Company kept for a well drilled near the middle of the sinkhole in 1927, there is evidence that an underground cavern once extended over 100 feet vertically but apparently collapsed. Several other sinkholes have occurred over the Boling Dome, a condition that is becoming common at other salt dome sites where sulfur and oil are produced. Two communities, Boling and Newgulf, are located at the Boling Dome. Their existence is due directly to the production of sulfur and oil from the dome. Newgulf is a Texas Gulf Sulphur (now Texasgulf) company town that has largely depopulated since the Texasgulf mine closed in 1993, and Boling is located at the intersection of State Farm roads 1301 and 442.

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Boling, TX

1900

Boling is on Farm roads 1301 and 442 and the west bank of Caney Creek, nine miles southeast of Wharton in southeastern Wharton County. The community was established in 1900, when the New York, Texas and Mexican Railway built through the area. Robert E. Vineyard had a town plat surveyed and named it Bolling in honor of his six-year-old daughter, Mary Bolling Vineyard. The post office listing altered the spelling. Before the arrival of the railroad, the site was known as Floyd's Lane and was on the trail that led to crossings on the San Bernard and Colorado rivers. Until after the railroad was built, no major road, only a trail along Caney Creek, led to Wharton from the site. The railroad brought in a few settlers, but the area remained largely in the hands of large landowners, remnants from the plantation era. In 1907 Boling had a school for Black students, with four teachers and an enrollment of 104. These children were primarily the descendants of former slaves whose families still lived in the area, working as tenant, sharecropper, or salaried agricultural workers on the large land tracts. In 1907 the community had a store, a blacksmith shop, and fewer than a dozen families. Beginning in 1925, sulfur, oil, and gas were discovered at Boling Dome , and Boling became a boomtown. Its population grew from twenty in 1920 to 450 in 1930. One of the new Boling subdivisions named all its streets after oil companies operating on Boling Dome. Vineyard's platted town became a residential section, rather than a business district as he had hoped. A post office established at the community in 1926 had one rural-route service in the 1980s. A Boling Chamber of Commerce was established in 1935, and by 1944 the town's population reached 800. The Boling Independent School District was organized in 1941, bringing in schools in Iago and Newgulf to help form the district. In 1973 part of the Hungerford Independent School District was consolidated into the Boling district. The high school campus was in Boling, the junior high campus in Iago, and the elementary campus in Newgulf. In the early 1990s the town's economy was based largely on oil, gas, and sulfur production. Its population was reported as 700 from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s and declined to 521 by 1972. Thereafter the number of residents began to increase again, to 1,297 by 1990. The closure of the sulfur plant at Newgulf in December 1993 adversely affected the Boling economy. In 2000 the combined population of the Boling-Iago area was 1,271.

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Boling

1900

This area was called Floyd's Lane prior to the advent of the New York, Texas & Mexican Railway in 1900. Named for the Bolling family of Virginia, the town name was misspelled when citizens applied for a U. S. Post Office. The economy was based on farming and the railroad until sulphur, oil, and gas were discovered on the Boling dome in 1925. Boling became a boom town; the population grew from 20 in 1920 to 450 in 1930. Many streets and subdivisions were named for the companies that flocked here. Mineral production was the dominant industry in the area for 70 years.

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G. C. and Clara Mick Home, 1909

1903

Oldest in town founded 1900, on new Wharton-Palacios rail line. Mick, Missouri wheat grower and stock farmer, entered Texas on a "Rice Special," 1903. First home on land was a hurricane victim. Eldest son, A. C. Mick, laid out Iago, was architect this house. Used Cuban carpenters. Mansard roof. Cistern on porch. First electric plant in area. Bell rung only in emergencies. Often a shelter in hurricanes. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1965

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Iago, TX

1899

Iago is at the intersection of Farm roads 1301 and 1096, two miles northwest of Boling and twelve miles east of Wharton in southeastern Wharton County. The local Caney Creek was originally named Canebrake Creek for the large primeval forest of what Texans call "cane," a native bamboo, Arundinaria , growing to heights of twenty feet. The first settlers burned off the large tracts of canebrake, built large plantations, and grew sugarcane and cotton. The results of the Civil War and the sugarcane blight ended the large plantations, and the area was generally abandoned until 1899, when the New York, Texas and Mexican Railway ran a branch from Wharton to Van Vleck in Matagorda County. This opened up the area to small farming interests. Clarence D. Kemp owned three and one-sixth leagues of land where he set up a mercantile store in the late 1880s. The nearest settlements were Waterville, five miles west, and Preston, three miles west. A post office operated in Iago from 1891 until 1901 with Kemp as postmaster. Kemp was sheriff of Wharton County from 1914 to 1921. G. C. Mick surveyed and laid out the township of Iago in 1911, from 1,000 acres that he bought from Kemp. The area had been part of the Seth Ingram league and was next to the railroad. The name Iago was chosen by M. D. Taylor and C. D. Kemp, after the villain in Shakespeare's Othello . The first school was organized in 1902; it became part of the Boling school district in 1941. By 1920 Iago had two gins, a syrup mill, a blacksmith, several mercantile and grocery stores, a drugstore and doctor, a barbershop, saloons, a church, and a population of 200. The 1927 Wharton County poll tax roll lists 134 White registrants, seven of whom were women, and fifty-three Black registrants, three of whom were women. The church was a federation of Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, and Disciples of Christ. Each group was responsible for services one Sunday each month, and any fifth Sunday was open to other denominations. Summer revivals were sponsored by the groups in alphabetical order. An oil well was drilled in the front yard of the church in 1945, and the mineral royalty financed the building program on the original lot given by William Stafford . In 1958 the population was 300, but it dropped to 150 by 1964. The Iago Federated Church was still active in 1991. The school served as a Boling junior high. In 1990 a few businesses still operated in the area, and several outlying farms and oil and gas wells were still productive. A cemetery behind the school campus was neglected and overgrown. In 1990 Iago had a population of fifty-six, and in 2016 the population was estimated at 155.

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Albert Clinton Horton

1834

(1798-1865)
 Georgia native Albert Clinton Horton came to Texas in 1834 from Alabama, where he had served in the state legislature. He established a plantation along Caney Creek in present Wharton County. In 1835, he returned to Alabama to recruit volunteers for the Texas army, and he served as colonel of a cavalry unit during the Texas revolution. Upon the establishment of the Republic of Texas in 1836, Horton was elected to Congress. He was chairman of the commission appointed by President M. B. Lamar, which selected Austin as the site for a permanent capitol for the Republic of Texas in 1839. When Texas became a state in December 1845, Horton was elected its first lt. governor. He served as acting governor for a year while Governor Henderson was leading Texas forces in the Mexican war. When Baylor University was founded in 1845, Horton was a charter trustee. By the 1850s, he had homes in both Wharton and Matagorda. His home near this site, "Sycamore Grove," was razed in 1960. A community leader, he helped found Wharton's First Baptist Church. He and his wife, Elias Holliday, had six children, only two of whom lived to maturity. Horton died in 1865, and is buried in Matagorda Cemetery. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986

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Boling, Texas

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Wharton, TX RoadyGoat

Wharton, TX RoadyGoat

Wharton, TX RoadyGoat

Boling Dome

Boling, TX

Boling

G. C. and Clara Mick Home, 1909

Iago, TX

Albert Clinton Horton

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