EMERALD, TEXAS. Emerald was seven miles east of Ozona and eighty-five miles southeast of San Angelo in eastern Crockett County. The townsite was in a level divide at an elevation of 2,425 feet stretched between the hills of the Edwards Plateau.^qv In 1888 a well-driller successfully tapped the aquifer 540 feet below the surface. T. A. Wilkinson of Tarrant County, an immigration commissioner for the Fort Worth and Rio Grande Railway Company, persuaded the company to equip the well with a windmill, a pump, a tank, a two-room schoolhouse, and a store. A townsite one mile square was established with 300 lots, one-fourth to be for business, and named Emerald Grove. Prospective clients came by railroad to San Angelo and were brought by buggy to view the townsite and the level land, available at a dollar an acre. Settlers came from Tarrant County, Texas, as well as Ohio, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Iowa. Houses and buildings were constructed of lumber brought from San Angelo. The post office opened in 1890. A buckboard provided mail service and transportation from San Angelo.

But in 1890, when Crockett County was organized, Ozona became the county seat. Emerald was bypassed by the railroad, so the whole town moved to Ozona. The post office closed in 1891, and the school closed in 1893. In the fall of 1897 the school building, the last of the Emerald structures, was hauled to Ozona on four wagons. In Crockett County Memorial Park, Ozona, is preserved a home from Emerald.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Crockett County Historical Society, History of Crockett County (San Angelo: Anchor, 1976). Ozona Stockman, July 31, 1941. San Angelo Standard Times, August 29, 1954. Marker Files, Texas Historical Commission, Austin.

Mary W. Clayton