WADSWORTH, TEXAS. Wadsworth is near the junction of State Highway 60 and Farm roads 521 and 2078 in south central Matagorda County. Ambrose A. Plotner and John W. Stoddard purchased the Kemp pasture on October 11, 1902, and formed the Colonial Land Company, which founded Wadsworth and named it for early settler William Wadsworth. During the early 1900s the community became a stop on the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway. In 1907 Wadsworth secured a post office; by 1914 an estimated 150 inhabitants were served by two churches, a school, a cotton gin, a lumberyard, and a telephone connection. In 1925 the community reported an estimated population of 894 and no businesses. In 1936 Wadsworth had a church, a school, four businesses, and several dwellings. By the 1930s Wadsworth residents had established their own school district. During the 1937-38 school year three teachers instructed seventy students. In later years the high school students were bused to Gulf High School in Old Gulf and then to Bay City High School. By 1949 the Wadsworth school had been consolidated with the Bay City Independent School District. In 1940 Wadsworth still had three businesses, but the population had dropped to 400. In 1949 three businesses remained, and the population was eighty. In 1988 and 1990 the estimated population was 152, and the town had seven businesses. The population was 160 in 2000.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Frank J. Balusek, Survey and Proposed Reorganization of the Schools of Matagorda County, Texas (M.Ed. thesis, University of Texas, 1939 Matagorda County Historical Commission, Historic Matagorda County (3 vols., Houston: Armstrong, 1986).
