Eldridge, TX

Eldridge is near the junction of Farm roads 950 and 2614, between Garwood and Eagle Lake in southeastern Colorado County. In 1898 it was on the "Bonus Loop" of the Cane Belt Railroad and was named for William T. Eldridge, director of the railroad and part owner and general manager of the Imperial Sugar Company. In 1905 the Faber Planting Company purchased 1,140 acres of sugarcane and cotton land from Eldridge. Included in the purchase were several storage buildings and a gin. The Faber Planting Company subdivided the acreage into forty to sixty acre tracts and built homes on each for tenant farmers, whose primary responsibility was to provide sugarcane for the Eldridge refinery, then known as Sugarland Industries. During harvest season convict labor was used to help the local residents. A post office was established in 1906 and continued in operation until 1942, when mail was delivered regularly from Eagle Lake. In 1914 Eldridge had a population estimated at 200, telephone and telegraph service, and a general store operated by the Faber company. In 1926 the community's population was 100. Mechanized equipment replaced the tenant farmers during the 1940s and 1950s, and, with the exception of some tenants who bought their homes, the population drifted away. In 1986 several of the original homes remained. In 2000 the population was twenty.