Rogers Prairie, One of the Ghost Towns in Texas

Ghost towns are everywhere in Texas. It makes you wonder what made the towns develop and flourish in the first place and why they were eventually left deserted. Why would a town fail to prosper after being a bustling trade center with multiple banks, stores, cotton gins, doctors, post office, churches, schools and other businesses? Each has its own story to be told.

Ghost towns are towns or cities that have been completely or almost completely abandoned by human inhabitants. Sometimes the description is used to describe cities, towns or neighborhoods which are significantly less populated than in the past but not completely deserted.

Towns sometimes were begun, thrived for a while and then dwindled away when there was an activity going on such as gold mining. As the mines played out people moved on to another job or profession. Some towns have been abandoned due to water no longer being available. Lakes have been built that caused water to cover the land and people had to move out. Contamination of the land has caused some towns to be left behind. In Centralia, Pennsylvania dangerous underground coal fires are burning and the town was abandoned. A very small number of people chose to stay behind so the town is not considered by some to be a ghost town, but by the definition above, it is a ghost town.

Some towns were abandoned and became ghost towns when the railroad bypassed them and went through nearby towns. Rogers Prairie, possibly named for Robert Rogers, was established on the Old San Antonio Road in Leon County, Texas in 1840. This was near the time Ft. Boggy was built nearby to protect settlers from Indians. The families built their homes inside the compound of the fort. In 1880 the population of Rogers Prairie was 48 and 130 in 1884. In 1904 the population was reported to be 216. Normangee, Texas, named for Norman G. Kittrell, was established as a station two miles west of Rogers Prairie in 1905 on the Houston and Texas Central Railroad. In 1906 or 1907 the Trinity and Brazos Valley Railway was also built through Normangee. The post office was moved from Rogers Prairie to Normangee in 1907.

Many settlers from Rogers Prairie moved to Normangee because of the railroads there and several buildings, including one church, were moved to Normangee on log rollers. By the 1940s Rogers Prairie only had scattered dwellings and a cemetery. In the 1960s only the Ike Carter home and several residences from a later date remained. Today Rogers Prairie is considered a ghost town and about all that remains is the cemetery. There are many other ghost towns in this area, a number of them within 10 to 15 miles from Normangee. Perhaps I will explore these abandoned towns in the near future.