BERMUDA, TEXAS (Dimmit County). Bermuda, first known as Bermuda Colony, was a farming community and real estate development six miles east of Carrizo Springs on the north side of the Nueces River in north central Dimmit County. The town takes its name from the Bermuda onion, one of the area's principal crops and for a time a source of profit for local farmers. Bermuda was largely established by "Colonel" J. S. Taylor, an audacious land developer who had helped to establish Del Mar, California. In 1899 Taylor initiated construction of a dam across the Nueces River. He also drilled a deep artesian well. By 1903 the completed thirty-foot dam had formed a reservoir ten miles long. Taylor's planting of onions and strawberries on a large scale was an early financial success and became the model for the future development of Dimmit County. Settlers moved to the area, and by 1902 E. M. Cobb opened a store on the site. In 1904 a post office opened, and by 1915 the settlement had forty-eight residents. Drought and low prices between 1916 and 1918, however, devastated the small farmers. No population statistics are available for Bermuda after 1915. In 1919 the post office and the Baptist Church closed. A map compiled in the mid-1940s showed an unnamed cluster of ten dwellings in the area, but a 1972 map showed only two buildings on the site.

Bibliography: Laura Knowlton Tidwell, Dimmit County Mesquite Roots (Austin: Wind River, 1984). Vertical Files, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin.