Hungerford

Hungerford is on U.S. Highway 59 and State Highway 60, six miles from Wharton in northeastern Wharton County. By the early 1870s a farming and cattle-raising community named Quinan, after George E. Quinan , had developed at the site in the Alexander Jackson qv league near West Bernard Creek. A community post office was established in 1874 in the general store of John C. Habermacher, who served as first postmaster and was appointed the first trustee of the Quinan school in 1877. Habermacher's wife was a granddaughter of Alexander Jackson. Habermacher also formed the Quinan Literary Club; he had formerly been a member of the actor Edwin Booth's troupe. In 1880 area residents established a Methodist church. In 1882, when the New York, Texas and Mexican Railway passed a quarter mile east of Quinan, most of the town's businesses moved to be next to the railroad. A townsite was surveyed in the George W. Singleton league and named Hungerford, after Daniel E. Hungerford, an executive of the railroad syndicate. In 1883 the post office was moved from Quinan to Hungerford, and William McKinney became the postmaster. By 1885 Hungerford had a school, several churches, a steam cotton gin, a gristmill, and a population of 200.