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History

 

STAPLES, TEXAS. Staples, on the San Marcos River in northeastern Guadalupe County, is located at the intersection of State Highway 621 and County Road 1977.

 

In an election held on May 10, 2008, its residents voted to incorporate the community as a city. A total of 125 votes were cast with 87 (69.6%) in favor of incorporation and 38 (30.4%) against. The population is approximately 220 and it is part of the San Antonio Metropolitan Statistical Area.

 

The city held its first municipal election on November 4, 2008. Eddie Daffern, an organizer of the incorporation effort, was elected unopposed as Mayor. A total of seven candidates ran for the five Alderman positions.

 

The earliest arrivals in the area were served by two churches. The Woodlawn Baptist Church, established in 1875, was two miles southwest of the settlement. There were two Methodist churches: Harris Chapel two miles east and Pleasant Ridge three miles northwest. In 1887 a Baptist church was built next to the schoolhouse in Staples, and in 1902 a Methodist church was erected just up the street. The Baptist church has had an intermittent existence with prolonged periods of inactivity; the Methodist church has been continuously active. The watershed event in Staples history was the goring of Mrs. Tom Anderson by her Durham milk cow in the spring of 1912. While attempting to separate the cow from its newborn calf, forty-nine-year-old "Granny" Anderson was completely disemboweled by a swift hook of the cow's horn. Hearing an agonized scream, frantic neighbors rushed to improvise a stretcher by ripping a barn door from its hinges and carrying the gravely injured woman to young Dr. Wilburn Williams' office, where they laid her on the only available surface-the dining room table. After cleaning the gaping wound with tap water from a system that remained unapproved until 1954, he replaced her intestines, sewed her up, and pronounced her as good as dead. Mrs. Anderson carried the scar of this encounter to her grave at the age of 105 in April 1968. She outlived the doctor by more than two decades and remained his most famous case. For that generation and the one following, events in Staples were timed in relation to Granny Anderson's goring.

 

In the 1990s Staples was home not only to farmers but also to commuters who traveled to jobs in nearby cities. From the 1870s to the turn of the century the village fathers pleaded in vain for a rail connection to Austin and San Antonio, but in the 1990s the community firmly opposed not only high-speed rail but a new Austin-San Antonio freeway as well. The 1993 population was seventy-five. Governmental functions are provided by the post office and the Staples Farmers' Co-op, which supplies water. Methodist and Baptist churches are both active. The only businesses are a barbershop, two beauty shops, and a cafe. In 2000 the population was 350.

 

Education

 

Staples is served by the San Marcos Consolidated Independent School District.

 

Guadalupe County Links

 

Guadalupe County

Guadalupe County Tax Assessor

Guadalupe County Fair & Rodeo

Guadalupe County Flood Information

Guadalupe County News & Notices

Guadalupe Blanco River Authority

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