Sunnyside, Castro County, Texas

Sunnyside is an unincorporated community in Castro County, Texas, United States. According to the Handbook of Texas, the community had an estimated population of 80 in 2000.

History
Sunnyside was established in 1912. The location was first part of the XIT Ranch property, and then it was part of the William E. Halsell survey. A church was built on the other side of the road in 1925. In 1930 a store was constructed. Sunnyside experienced severe water shortages regularly throughout the Dust Bowl. Two miles east of Sunnyside, in 1935, R. E. Cade dug the first deep irrigation well in the region. Soon after, other farms adopted a similar strategy, and by 1971, every farm in the area had at least one deep well. The Rural Electrification Administration helped deliver electricity to the region in 1941. Still, the community persisted. Just south of the county line, El Paso Natural Gas constructed a ten-family housing complex and a booster plant in 1951, along with the construction of a cotton gin. A tornado on April 12, 1960, destroyed multiple structures, left three people dead and sixty injured, but the locals quickly rebuilt with assistance from nearby towns and churches. In 1972, the Lions Club converted a business building into a community center and, in 1979, donated firefighting equipment to the local community. Ever since the club has thrown an annual Fourth of July bash that includes pyrotechnics. There were five more companies, a gin, and a new church in Sunnyside, which had 106 residents in 1980 and 1990. By 2000, the population had fallen to eighty.

Geography
Sunnyside is located on U.S. Route 385, 15 mi south of Dimmitt in Castro County.

Education
Axtell and Roush, two rural schools named for local settlers, combined at a central location in 1912. Due to the climate and the fact that he had lived close to Sunnyside, Tennessee, another local, Jeff Gilbreath, called the school Sunnyside. In this school, the Sunnyside Baptist Church was established in 1921. The previous building was replaced with a new brick facility after four years. The Sunnyside School District was divided between Dimmitt, Springlake, and Hart in 1945 after the Sunnyside School closed its doors in 1942.

Today, the community is served by the Dimmitt Independent School District and the Springlake-Earth Independent School District.