Borden, Texas

Borden is an unincorporated community in southwestern Colorado County, Texas, United States. According to the Handbook of Texas, the community had a population of 60 in 2000.

History
Harvey's Creek Settlement was the name of the region before the American Civil War, but soon after the war, the Borden Milk Company's founder, Gail Borden, Jr., made his way back to Texas, naming the hamlet Bordenville after himself, his sons, and his brother John P. Borden. They had built their homes on the hills above the creek. The Galveston, Harrisburg, and San Antonio Railway finished passing through the region in 1872. That year, Borden made a $125,000 investment in the Borden Meat Preserving Company located there. The business constructed a slaughterhouse in 1873 that could process 25 heads a day and included equipment for making "extract of beef," roast beef, and beef hash. Prospective inhabitants came to the new community, lured by the railroad, available jobs, and land that sold for $5 to $57 per acre. A post office was founded on January 19, 1874, and John P. Borden was appointed postmaster. Up until 1905, when mail was redirected to Weimar, it remained in operation. The railroad eventually forced the processing facility to close, even though it continued to function for many years following Gail Borden's death in 1874 due to the higher freight charges associated with exporting processed meat rather than live cattle, but by then, the settlement had grown significantly, with a station, a hotel, a gin, many shops, and over 100 residents. In 1878, it was characterized as a "snug little town" encircled by corn, cotton, and cane fields. A few businesses relocated to the new location after the roadway was rerouted approximately half a mile south of the hamlet in the 1930s. The majority of homes and a railroad section's offices were still situated at the previous site. The highway department created Borden Lake, a 2 acre impoundment next to the new U.S. 90, and set up picnic tables along the side of the road. All but one of Borden's businesses had closed by 1948. When I-10 was built in the late 1950s, Old San Antonio Road became Colorado County 217 and even more traffic was diverted away from the area. Less than 50 people still lived there, and just one business was still in operation by the 1980s when the majority of the area's land had returned to pasture. The population in 2000 was 60.

Geography
Borden is located between Interstate 10 and U.S. Highway 90 on the Southern Pacific Railroad, 8 mi west of Columbus, 4 mi northeast of Weimar, and 80 mi west of Houston in southwestern Colorado County.

Education
Gail Borden built a school for white children and a freedmen's school for black children, which continued to operate in 1874. In 1948, the Borden area schools were consolidated into the Weimar Independent School District.

Government and infrastructure
In 1938, the Texas Highway Department announced plans to construct a lake and roadside park in Borden. They are the only visible infrastructure of years gone by in Borden. The lake was to be constructed along US 90, then called the Houston-San Antonio State Highway No. 3. The Feb. 18, 1938,  Eagle Lake Headlight announced that the new seven-acre lake “destined to become one of the main attractions", along the Houston-San Antonio highway. Work began on the project by February 1938, with "a modest beginning as a roadside park,” according to the Headlight. The lake was to be placed about a quarter mile from what was the existing highway and directly west of State Highway 3, which eventually became Interstate 10. State Highway 3 bypassed Borden at what is now Hatterman Lane. A creek then running through the site was to be dammed to fill the lake. "Workmen are busy now in damming up the creek, pulling down a hill in this vicinity, and utilizing [sic] dirt from this elsewhere to form banks for the new lake," M.B. Hodges, state highway division engineer from Yoakum told the Headlight in 1938. Initial plans for the lake included eventual stocking with fish and a multiyear moratorium on fishing before opening the lake to sports enthusiasts.