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In 1905 this town was a drowsy country village called Brewer-- named for 1835 land grantee Green Berry Brewer. It had been settled in the 1870s. Prosperity rolled into Brewer in 1906, however, when the Trinity & Brazos Valley Railroad selected it as site for the railroad shops and as the main division point between Houston and Fort Worth. The town was speedily renamed for the Teague family, relatives of noted railroad builder B. F. Yoakum. In August, 1906, promoters held a town lot sale. Customers arriving on a special train were met by a band playing "Dixie" and before the day was over, they had consumed 5,000 pounds of barbecue. By 1907 Teague was transformed. Dozens of brick buildings were under construction, population soared, and the Ten Thousand Club advertised "10,000 by 1910". Teague's first opera house was soon projected, and citizens once watched 2 merchants struggle happily to the bank carrying large baskets of "greenbacks". During the first decade of the 1900s, population hovered at 5,000 but then momentum decreased. With the decline of passenger train service, Teague began to dwindle. Today it is again a quiet town and the railroad depot-office building houses a museum. (1969) |
